Consensus molecular subtyping of metastatic colorectal cancer expands biomarker-directed therapeutic benefit for patients with CMS1 and CMS2 tumors

We developed a whole transcriptome sequencing (WTS)-based Consensus Molecular Subtypes (CMS) classifier using FFPE tissue and investigated its prognostic and predictive utility in a large clinico-genomic database of CRC patients (n = 24,939).

The classifier was trained against the original CMS datasets using an SVM model and validated in an independent blinded TCGA dataset (88.0% accuracy). Kaplan–Meier estimates of overall survival (OS) and time-on-treatment (TOT) were calculated for each CMS (p < 0.05 considered significant).

CMS2 tumors were enriched on left-side of colon and conferred the longest median OS. In RAS-wildtype mCRC, left-sided tumors and CMS2 classification were associated with longer TOT with anti-EGFR antibodies (cetuximab and panitumumab). When restricting to only CMS2, there was no significant difference in TOT between right- versus left-sided tumors. CMS1 tumors were associated with a longer median TOT with pembrolizumab relative to other CMS groups, even when analyzing only microsatellite stable (MSS) tumors.

A WTS-based CMS classifier allowed investigation of a large multi-institutional clinico-genomic mCRC cohort, suggesting anti-EGFR therapy benefit for right-sided RAS-WT CMS2 tumors and immune checkpoint inhibitor benefit for MSS CMS1. Routine CMS classification of CRC provides important treatment associations that should be further investigated.