Purpose: Prior molecular profiling of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has identified actionable findings that may have a role in guiding therapeutic decision-making and clinical trial enrollment. We implemented prospective next-generation sequencing (NGS) in the clinic to determine whether such analyses provide predictive and/or prognostic information for HCC patients treated with contemporary systemic therapies. Experimental Design: Matched tumor/normal DNA from patients with HCC (N ¼ 127) were analyzed using a hybridization capture-based NGS assay designed to target 341 or more cancer-associated genes. Demographic and treatment data were prospectively collected with the goal of correlating treatment outcomes and drug response with molecular profiles. Results: WNT/b-catenin pathway (45%) and TP53 (33%) alterations were frequent and represented mutually exclusive molecular subsets. In sorafenib-treated patients (n ¼ 81), oncogenic PI3K-mTOR pathway alterations were associated with lower disease control rates (DCR, 8.3% vs. 40.2%), shorter median progression-free survival (PFS; 1.9 vs. 5.3 months), and shorter median overall survival (OS; 10.4 vs. 17.9 months). For patients treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors (n ¼ 31), activating alteration WNT/b-catenin signaling were associated with lower DCR (0% vs. 53%), shorter median PFS (2.0 vs. 7.4 months), and shorter median OS (9.1 vs. 15.2 months). Twenty-four percent of patients harbored potentially actionable alterations including TSC1/2 (8.5%) inactivating/truncating mutations, FGF19 (6.3%) and MET (1.5%) amplifications, and IDH1 missense mutations (<1%). Six percent of patients treated with systemic therapy were matched to targeted therapeutics. Conclusions: Linking NGS to routine clinical care has the potential to identify those patients with HCC likely to benefit from standard systemic therapies and can be used in an investigational context to match patients to genome-directed targeted therapies. See related commentary by Pinyol et al., p. 2021

Purpose: Genomic methods can identify homologous recombination deficiency (HRD). Rigorous evaluation of their outcome association to DNA damage response-targeted therapies like platinum in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is essential in maximizing therapeutic outcome.Experimental Design: We evaluated progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) of patients with advancedstage PDAC, who had both germline-and somatic-targeted gene sequencing. Homologous recombination gene mutations (HRm) were evaluated: BRCA1,

Page 1 of 27 CancerThis is the author manuscript accepted for publication and has undergone full peer review but has not been through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process, which may lead to differences between this version and the Version record. Please cite this article as doi:10.1002/cncr.29769.This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. Accepted ArticleABSTRACT Advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) carries a dismal prognosis and the current treatment is limited to sorafenib, an agent with modest benefit. Preclinical data indicate that several immunologic mechanisms are at play to promote HCC development and growth while impairing effective antitumor immune surveillance. Several novel approaches geared at manipulating the immune response to HCC have suggested a therapeutic benefit in early stage clinical trials, indicating a real potential to augment tumor-specific immunity and improve outcomes in this disease. Herein, we review the barriers to an effective immune response against HCC and contemporary clinical investigations that may be "primed"to alter the natural history of HCC.