Clinicopathological characteristics and cancer-specific prognosis of primary pulmonary lymphoepithelioma-like carcinoma: a population study of the US SEER database and a Chinese hospital

Qun Zhang; Yuan Dai; Linling Jin; Shuangshuang Shi; Chang Liu; Rong Rong; Wenkui Sun; Shanlin Dai; Hui Kong; Weiping Xie

doi:10.3389/fonc.2023.1103169

Clinicopathological characteristics and cancer-specific prognosis of primary pulmonary lymphoepithelioma-like carcinoma: a population study of the US SEER database and a Chinese hospital

Front Oncol. 2023 May 19:13:1103169. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2023.1103169. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Qun Zhang¹, Yuan Dai¹, Linling Jin¹, Shuangshuang Shi¹, Chang Liu¹, Rong Rong², Wenkui Sun¹, Shanlin Dai¹, Hui Kong¹, Weiping Xie¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China.
² Department of Pathology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China.

Abstract

Introduction: Primary pulmonary lymphoepithelioma-like carcinoma (PPLELC) is a rare histological type of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), which accounts for less than 1% of NSCLC. Currently, there is no well-recognized treatment guideline for PPLELC.

Methods: We identified PPLELC patients from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) dataset between 2000 and 2015 (n = 72) as well as from our medical center between 2014 and 2020 (n = 16). All diagnoses were confirmed by pathological testing, and the clinicopathological characteristics of patients were retrieved and summarized. Survival analyses were conducted using the Kaplan-Meier analysis and log-rank tests. Multivariate survival analysis was performed with the Cox regression hazards model.

Results: The median age at diagnosis of the PPLELC cohort was 64 years, ranging from 15 to 86 years. The percentages of patients with TNM stages I, II, III, and IV were 52.3%, 10.2%, 20.5%, and 17.0%, respectively. Among the 88 cases, lesion resection was performed in 69 cases (78.4%), 16 cases (18.1%) received beam radiation, and 40 cases (45.5%) underwent chemotherapy. In the SEER dataset of lung cancer, the percentage of PPLELC in the Asian race (0.528‰) was almost 10 times higher than that in the white (0.065‰) and black (0.056‰) races. Patients with TNM stage III-IV exhibited a worse prognosis than those with TNM stage I-II (p = 0.008), with a 5-year cancer-specific survival (CSS) rate of 81.8% for TNM stage I-II and 56.2% for TNM stage III-IV. Specifically, the N stage and M stage were the leading prognostic factors, not the T stage and tumor size. Moreover, patients who underwent surgery had significantly better outcomes than those who did not (p = 0.014). Additional multivariate analysis indicated that the TNM stage was an independent prognosis factor for CSS (HR, 3.31; 95% CI, 1.08-10.14).

Conclusion: PPLELC is a rare tumor with Asian susceptibility. Although the prognosis of PPLELC is better than that of other subtypes of NSCLC, it remains unsatisfactory for advanced-stage disease. The current treatment options for PPLELC include surgical resection, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and immune therapy. Among these options, patients with surgical resection have better survival rates in this study. However, large-scale clinical research trials will be necessary to develop effective treatment guidelines for PPLELC.

Keywords: NSCLC; SEER; cancer-specific survival; incidence; primary pulmonary lymphoepithelioma-like carcinoma (PPLELC).

Grants and funding

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (82002438), the Fellowship of China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2020M671396), and the Fellowship of Jiangsu Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2020Z239).