Master’s project

Laura Nieboer, BSc

Lung cancer is the most common form of cancer worldwide. NSCLC accounts for the majority of lung cancer cases, and NSCLC generally has a poor prognosis. There are several different types of targeted treatments used in NSCLC, one of which aims to target mutations in EGFR. About 10% of EGFR activating mutations are insertions in exon 20 (ins20). Patients with EGFR ins20 are generally less responsive to EGFR-targeted treatment than patients with other types of activating EGFR mutations.

Therefore, the aim of my project is to investigate and describe various ins20 mutations in the EGFR gene in NSCLC patients. The project will describe EGFR ins20 patients as well as NGS results from circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) in the patients' blood samples. I hope to examine whether there is a correlation between mutation and patient outcomes and how the amount of EGFR ins20 in the ctDNA varies throughout treatment. A decrease in the amount of ctDNA is expected to indicate a good treatment response.