EGFR Mutation Detection and Its Association With Clinicopathological Characters of Lung Cancer Patients

Abstract

Background Lung cancer is the most common type of cancer worldwide with an estimation of 1.82 million new cancer cases diagnosed; and it is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths. Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) is a receptor tyrosine kinase identified as being highly expressed in cancer cells including lung cancers. The aim of the study is to determine the EGFR mutation status in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients to investigate the association between the EGFR mutation status and clinicopathological characters of patients. Methods The tissue samples of the lung cancer patients were collected bronchoscopically. The EGFR mutations of 70 NSCLC patients were determined by the immunohistochemistry (IHC). Results EGFR mutations were present in 24 cases (34.29%), including 19 (79.13%) cases of exon 19 and five (20.83%) cases of exon 21 mutation. EGFR mutations were frequently associated with adenocarcinoma and non-smoker. Statistically significant association of EGFR mutations with adenocarcinoma subtypes and non-smokers was found (P < 0.05); and no significant association of EGFR mutation with the age of the patient (P = 0.4647) and the stage (P = 0.4578) of the tumor was found. When we compared between these two mutations, no significant association with age (P=0.614) and smoking status (P=0.127) was found in this study. Conclusions EGFR mutations were significantly associated with female sex, non-smoker and adenocarcinoma subtypes. The analysis of EGFR mutation by the IHC method is a potentially useful tool to guide clinicians for personalized treatment of NSCLC patients of adenocarcinoma subtype.