Prevalence and Clinicopathological Characteristics of HER2 and BRAF Mutation in Chinese Patients with Lung Adenocarcinoma

PLoS One. 2015 Jun 23;10(6):e0130447. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0130447. eCollection 2015.

Abstract

Aims: To determine the prevalence and clinicopathological characteristics of BRAF V600E mutation and HER2 exon 20 insertions in Chinese lung adenocarcinoma (ADC) patients.

Methods: Given the fact that the driver mutations are mutually exclusive in lung ADCs, 204 EGFR/KRAS wild-type cases were enrolled in this study. Direct Sanger sequencing was performed to examine BRAF V600E and HER2 exon 20 mutations. The association of BRAF and HER2 mutations with clinicopathological characteristics was statistically analyzed.

Results: Among the 204 lung ADCs tested, 11 cases (5.4%) carried HER2 exon 20 insertions and 4 cases (2.0%) had BRAF V600E mutation. HER2 mutation status was identified to be associated with a non-smoking history (p<0.05). HER2 mutation occurs in 9.4% of never smokers (10/106), 8.7% of female (8/92) and 2.7% of male (3/112) in this selected cohort. All four BRAF mutated patients were women and three of them were never-smokers. No HER2 mutant patients harbor BRAF mutation.

Conclusions: HER2 and BRAF mutations identify a distinct subset of lung ADCs. Given the high prevalence of lung cancer and the availability of targeted therapy, Chinese lung ADC patients without EGFR and KRAS mutations are recommended for HER2 and BRAF mutations detection, especially for those never smokers.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adenocarcinoma / genetics
  • Adenocarcinoma / pathology*
  • China / epidemiology
  • ErbB Receptors / genetics
  • Female
  • Genes, erbB-2*
  • Genes, ras
  • Humans
  • Lung Neoplasms / genetics
  • Lung Neoplasms / pathology*
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Mutation*
  • Prevalence
  • Proto-Oncogene Proteins B-raf / genetics*

Substances

  • ErbB Receptors
  • BRAF protein, human
  • Proto-Oncogene Proteins B-raf

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Youth Backbone Program (to JY) of Cancer Hospital, CAMS, Beijing, China (http://www.cicams.ac.cn/), National Natural Science Foundation of China (to LS), Grant No. 81402464 (http://www.nsfc.gov.cn/), and the National Key Scientific and Technological Project (to JY), Grant No. 2011ZX09307-001-01 (http://www.most.gov.cn/). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.