AUTHOR=Deng Lingna , Li Jinbang , Qiu Zhanlong , Wang Yanfen 

TITLE=Driver gene alterations in NSCLC patients in southern China and their correlation with clinicopathologic characteristics

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Genetics

VOLUME=15

YEAR=2024

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/genetics/articles/10.3389/fgene.2024.1455502

DOI=10.3389/fgene.2024.1455502

ISSN=1664-8021

ABSTRACT=<sec><title>Introduction</title><p>In this study, we aimed to explore the relationship between clinicopathological features and driver gene changes in Chinese NSCLC patients.</p></sec><sec><title>Methods</title><p>Amplification refractory mutation system PCR was used to detect the aberrations of 10 driver oncogenes in 851 Chinese NSCLC patients, and their correlation with clinicopathological characteristics was also analyzed. Moreover, three models of logistic regression were used to analyze the association between histopathology and <italic>EGFR</italic> or <italic>KRAS</italic> mutations.</p></sec><sec><title>Results</title><p>The top two most frequently aberrant target oncogenes were <italic>EGFR</italic> (48.06%) and <italic>KRAS</italic> (9.51%). These were followed by <italic>ALK</italic> (5.41%), <italic>HER2</italic> (2.35%), <italic>MET</italic> (2.23%), <italic>RET</italic> (2.11%), <italic>ROS1</italic> (1.88%), <italic>BRAF</italic> (0.47%), <italic>NRAS</italic> (0.24%), and <italic>PIK3CA</italic> (0.12%). Additionally, 11 (1.29%) patients had synchronous gene alterations in two genes. The main <italic>EGFR</italic> mutations were exon 21 L858R and exon 19-Del, which accounted for 45.97% and 42.79% of all <italic>EGFR</italic> mutations, respectively. Logistic regression analysis showed that the frequency of <italic>EGFR</italic> mutations was positively correlated with women, non-smokers, lung adenocarcinoma, and invasive non-mucinous adenocarcinoma (IA), and negatively correlated with solid nodule, micro-invasive adenocarcinoma, and solid-predominant adenocarcinoma. <italic>KRAS</italic> mutations were positively associated with men and longer tumor long diameters and negatively correlated with lung adenocarcinoma (<italic>P &lt; 0.05</italic> for all).</p></sec><sec><title>Conclusion</title><p>Our findings suggest that the <italic>EGFR</italic> mutation frequency was higher in women, non-smokers, lung adenocarcinoma, and the IA subtype in lung adenocarcinoma patients, while the <italic>KRAS</italic> mutation rate was higher in men and patients with longer tumor long diameter and lower in lung adenocarcinoma patients.</p></sec>