Author(s)

Masaki Tomita^*, Takanori Ayabe, Eiichi Chosa, Katsuya Kawagoe, Kunihide Nakamura

Department of Surgery II, Faculty of Medicine, University of Miyazaki, Miyazaki, Japan.

Background: Previous studies reported that non-small cell carcinoma patients characterized by female gender, never-smoking status and adenocarcinoma histology were more likely to harbor epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutations. However, some studies failed to find the relationship between EGFR mutation and gender. Methods: One hundred and eighty-four consecutive patients (90 men and 94 women) of resected lung adenocarcinoma were studied retrospectively. Since the smoking rate is significantly higher in men, we assumed that gender difference might be a seeming factor affected by smoking. Therefore we subdivided the patients into 2 groups: never- and ever-smokers. Results: The number of ever-smokers was 94.44% in men, whereas 8.51% in women. EGFR mutation was positive in 48.9%. For overall patients, EGFR mutation status was associated with gender, pStage, pT status, lepidic dominant histologic subtype, pure/mixed groundglass opacity (GGO) on computed tomography (CT) and smoking status. However, in ever-smokers, EGFR mutation status was associated with lepidic histologic subtype and GGO on CT, but not others including gender. Similar results were also found in never-smokers, and gender was not also related to EGFR mutation in never smokers. Conclusion: The EGFR mutational frequency among men and women was not significantly different when lung adenocarcinoma patients were stratified into never- and ever-smokers.

 

Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Mutation, Smoker, Gender, Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer, Adenocarcinoma, Brinkman Index

Tomita, M. , Ayabe, T. , Chosa, E. , Kawagoe, K. and Nakamura, K. (2014) Gender Does Not Have a Potential Predictive Value for the Presence of Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Mutation in Lung Adenocarcinoma. Advances in Lung Cancer, 3, 82-87. doi: 10.4236/alc.2014.34012.