ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: Lung cancer's dismal prognosis led to new therapeutic approaches among which TKIs being among most promising; MATERIAL AND METHOD: Retrospective study at the Regional Institute of Oncology Iasi of non small cell lung cancer patients which underwent molecular investigations between November 2013 - September 2014. EGFR mutation status (positive, negative, undetermined) was assessed with an Entrogen EGFR kit using DNA extracted from paraffin embedded samples (surgical or endobronchial biopsies) with the Macherey-Nagel "NucleoSpin FFPE DNAkit" and then amplified on a Applied Biosystem 7500 Real Time PCR System. RESULTS: There were 63 adenocarcinoma samples (17 females, mean age 60,9 +/- 9 years): 49 primary lung tumors and 14 secondary lesions (brain, lymph nodes, pleural). There was insufficient bioptic material for three cases. TTF1 status was determined for 46 patients--six were negative. There were twelve mutations identified (7 female subjects, 5 male)--six L858R, five Del 19 and one G719X; ten were TTF1 positive for the remaining two TTF1 status was unknown. Female sex predominance was statistically significant (p = 0.02, chi squared). Mean age for mutation positive patients was 64 +/- 10 years; there were three never smokers, three active smokers and no data on smoking status was available for six subjects. CONCLUSION: Although small dimension of the study group precludes statistical significance EGFR mutations seem to correlate with TTF1 status.
