FGFR Fusions in Cancer: From Diagnostic Approaches to Therapeutic Intervention.

Fibroblast growth factor receptors (FGFRs) are tyrosine kinase receptors involved in many biological processes. Deregulated FGFR signaling plays an important role in tumor development and progression in different cancer types. genomic alterations, including gene fusions that originate by chromosomal rearrangements, represent a promising therapeutic target. Next-generation-sequencing (NGS) approaches have significantly improved the discovery of gene fusions and their detection in clinical samples. A variety of FGFR inhibitors have been developed, and several studies are trying to evaluate the efficacy of these agents in molecularly selected patients carrying genomic alterations. In this review, we describe the most frequent aberrations in human cancer. We also discuss the different approaches employed for the detection of fusions and the potential role of these genomic alterations as prognostic/predictive biomarkers.