Abstract
Lung cancer in never-smokers (LCINS) (fewer than 100 cigarettes in lifetime) is considered as a distinct entity and harbours an original molecular profile. However, the epidemiological and molecular features of LCINS in Europe remain poorly understood.
All consecutive newly diagnosed LCINS patients were included in this prospective observational study by 75 participating centres during a 14-month period. Each patient completed a detailed questionnaire about risk factor exposure. Biomarker and pathological analyses were also collected. We report the main descriptive overall results with a focus on sex differences.
384 patients were included: 65 men and 319 women. 66% had been exposed to passive smoking (significantly higher among women). Definite exposure to main occupational carcinogens was significantly higher in men (35% versus 8% in women). A targetable molecular alteration was found in 73% of patients (without any significant sex difference): EGFR in 51%, ALK in 8%, KRAS in 6%, HER2 in 3%, BRAF in 3%, PI3KCA in less than 1%, and multiple in 2%.
We present the largest and most comprehensive LCINS analysis in a European population. Physicians should track occupational exposure in men (35%), and a somatic molecular alteration in both sexes (73%).
Abstract
Occupational exposure and targetable mutation should be tracked in lung cancer of European never-smokers. http://ow.ly/FB2WS
Footnotes
For editorial comment see Eur Respir J 2015; 45: 1214–1217 [DOI: 10.1183/09031936.00046915]
This article has supplementary material available from erj.ersjournals.com.
Support statement: The BioCAST/IFCT-1002 study was supported by research grants from Astra-Zeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Lilly, Pfizer, Pierre-Fabre and Roche. Funding for this article has been deposited with FundRef. Those awarding funding had no role in the design, analysis and interpretation of the results, and the authors worked independently.
Conflict of interest: Disclosures can be found alongside the online version of this article at erj.ersjournals.com
- Received March 5, 2014.
- Accepted November 23, 2014.
- Copyright ©ERS 2015