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What is ALK?

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Last updated: March 2025

ALK for patients

What is ALK-positive lung cancer?

ALK-positive (or ALK+) lung cancer is a type of non-small cell lung cancer. It occurs when a gene called the anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) gene fuses with another gene. This fusion changes the way the signalling works within the cell, causing the cancer cells to continuously divide and replicate.

Who gets ALK+ lung cancer?

ALK+ lung cancer only accounts for about 5% of advanced non-small cell lung cancers (Chevallier et al., 2021). ALK+ lung cancer can occur in anyone, but below are a few factors that tend to be seen more commonly.

  • ALK+ lung cancer is more common in those who are younger than the average lung cancer patient. The median age of patients with ALK-rearranged NSCLC is given as 50-52 (LoPiccolo et al., 2024), while the average age of lung cancer patients generally is 74 (National Lung Cancer Audit State of the Nation, 2024)
  • ALK+ lung cancer is more common in light smokers or 'never-smokers' (Williams et al., 2016). Never-smokers are commonly defined as people who have smoked fewer than 100 cigarettes in their lifetime (Klemperer et al., 2021)
  • Other mutation-driven non-small cell lung cancers, such as those with an EGFR mutation, tend to be more common in female patients than in male patients (Lindeman et al., 2013), but these differences are generally not found in ALK+ lung cancer cases

References

Please be aware that the following links are current (as of December 2024), some may reside behind a paywall.

  • Cancer Research UK (2024). ‘Types of Lung Cancer’, cancerresearchuk.org accessed 27 November 2024
  • Chevallier, M. et al. (2021) ‘Oncogenic driver mutations in non-small cell lung cancer: Past, present and future.’, World journal of clinical oncology, 12(4), pp. 217–237. Available at: doi.org.
  • Khan, S. et al. (2023) ‘Lung cancer in never smokers (LCINS): development of a UK national research strategy’, BJC Reports, 1(1), p. 21. Available at: doi.org.
  • Klemperer, E.M. et al. (2021) ‘Tobacco and Nicotine Use Among US Adult “Never Smokers” in Wave 4 (2016–2018) of the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health Study’, Nicotine & Tobacco Research, 23(7), pp. 1199–1207. Available at: doi.org
  • National Lung Cancer Audit. (2024) National Lung Cancer Audit State of the Nation 2024. Available at lungcanceraudit.org.uk
  • Williams, A.S. et al. (2016) ‘ALK+ lung adenocarcinoma in never smokers and long-term ex-smokers: prevalence and detection by immunohistochemistry and fluorescence in situ hybridization’, Virchows Archiv, 469(5), pp. 533–540. Available at: doi.org.
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