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ALK in Neuroblastoma: Biological and Therapeutic Implications.

Published version
Peer-reviewed

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Abstract

Neuroblastoma (NB) is the most common and deadly solid tumour in children. Despite the development of new treatment options for high-risk NB, over half of patients relapse and five-year survival remains at 40-50%. Therefore, novel treatment strategies aimed at providing long-term disease remission are urgently sought. ALK, encoding the anaplastic lymphoma kinase receptor, is altered by gain-of-function point mutations in around 14% of high-risk NB and represents an ideal therapeutic target given its low or absent expression in healthy tissue postnatally. Small-molecule inhibitors of Anaplastic Lymphoma Kinase (ALK) approved in ALK fusion-positive lung cancer are currently undergoing clinical assessment in patients with ALK-mutant NB. Parallel pre-clinical studies are demonstrating the efficacy of ALK inhibitors against common ALK variants in NB; however, a complex picture of therapeutic resistance is emerging. It is anticipated that long-term use of these compounds will require combinatorial targeting of pathways downstream of ALK, functionally-related 'bypass' mechanisms and concomitant oncogenic pathways.

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Keywords

ALK, kinase inhibitors, neuroblastoma

Journal Title

Cancers (Basel)

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

2072-6694
2072-6694

Volume Title

10

Publisher

MDPI AG
Sponsorship
European Commission Horizon 2020 (H2020) Marie Sk?odowska-Curie actions (675712)
Children with Cancer UK (16-209)