Successful salvage surgery following multimodal therapy in a patient who harboured ALK‐rearranged advanced lung adenocarcinoma with multiple organ metastases

Abstract

The prognosis of stage IVb non‐small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients with multiple distant metastases or involvement of different extra‐thoracic sites is poor. The prognosis following salvage surgery for patients with more than five metastases has been reported as most unfavourable. The following case is of a 71‐year‐old man with a 9‐year survival duration after being diagnosed with stage IVb ALK‐rearranged lung adenocarcinoma, who was treated for 6 years with whole‐brain radiotherapy, pemetrexed‐based chemotherapy, ALK‐tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) including ceritinib and alectinib, and salvage sublobar resection of the primary lung cancer and who obtained treatment‐free remission (TFR) for more than 3 years following surgery.

Keywords

• ALK‐TKI
• lung cancer
• pemetrexed
• salvage surgery
• treatment‐free remission