The impact of sex and smoking status on the mutational spectrum of epidermal growth factor receptor gene in non small cell lung cancer.

Purpose: Mutation of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) gene has been reported to be present in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and significantly associated with female sex and never-smoking status. In this study, we extensively investigated the impact of sex and smoking on the EGFR mutation.

Experimental Design: We examined EGFR exons 18 to 21 status in 1,467 NSCLC patients by direct sequencing to study the impact of sex and smoking status on the EGFR mutational spectrum.

Usefulness of EGFR mutation screening in pleural fluid to predict the clinical outcome of gefitinib treated patients with lung cancer.

The importance of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) gene mutation has been recognized in nonsmall cell lung cancer (NSCLC), requiring the standardization of mutation screening system including the kind of samples. Here, we examined the EGFR mutation status in 61 pleural fluid samples from NSCLC cases using direct sequencing, nonenriched PCR, mutant-enriched PCR and peptide nucleic acid-locked nucleic acid (PNA-LNA) PCR clamp assay. The mutant-enriched PCR assay detected 16 mutant cases.