Abstract
EGFR and HER2 mutations and ALK rearrangement are known to be related to lung cancer in never-smokers, while KRAS, BRAF and PIK3CA mutations are typically observed among smokers. There is still debate surrounding whether never-smokers exposed to passive smoke exhibit a “smoker-like” somatic profile compared with unexposed never-smokers.
Passive smoke exposure was assessed in the French BioCAST/IFCT-1002 never-smoker lung cancer cohort and routine molecular profiles analyses were compiled.
Of the 384 patients recruited into BioCAST, 319 were tested for at least one biomarker and provided data relating to passive smoking. Overall, 219 (66%) reported having been exposed to passive smoking. No significant difference was observed between mutation frequency and passive smoke exposure (EGFR mutation: 46% in never exposed versus 41% in ever exposed; KRAS: 7% versus 7%; ALK: 13% versus 11%; HER2: 4% versus 5%; BRAF: 6% versus 5%; PIK3CA: 4% versus 2%). We observed a nonsignificant trend for a negative association between EGFR mutation and cumulative duration of passive smoke exposure. No association was found for other biomarkers.
There is no clear association between passive smoke exposure and somatic profile in lifelong, never-smoker lung cancer.
Abstract
Never-smokers with lung cancer exposed to passive smoke do not have a smoker-like somatic mutation profile http://ow.ly/Eheoi
Footnotes
This article has supplementary material available from erj.ersjournals.com
Clinical trial: This study is registered at www.clinicaltrials.gov with identifier number NCT01465854.
Support statement: The BioCAST/IFCT-1002 study was funded by research grants from AstraZeneca, Boehringer-Ingelheim, Lilly, Pfizer, Pierre-Fabre and Roche. Those awarding funding had no role in the design, analysis or interpretation of the results, and the authors thus worked independently.
Conflict of interest: Disclosures can be found alongside the online version of this article at erj.ersjournals.com
- Received May 27, 2014.
- Accepted November 10, 2014.
- Copyright ©ERS 2014