Prevalence of Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Mutations in Patients with Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer in Turkish Population

AIMS: Epidermal growth factor receptor mutation analysis in non-small cell lung cancer is important for selecting patients who will receive treatment with tyrosine kinase inhibitors. In this study, we aimed to investigate the prevalence of epidermal growth factor receptor mutations and mutation patterns in the Turkish population. METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed molecular pathology reports of 959 cases with lung cancer analysed for epidermal growth factor receptor mutations. We analysed all four epidermal growth factor receptor exon mutations using a real-time polymerase chain reaction platform. RESULTS: In this study, the epidermal growth factor receptor mutation rate in the Turkish population was 16.7% (160 of 959). The epidermal growth factor receptor mutation frequency was significantly higher in women (37.1%, n=96) than in men (9.1%, n=64) (p<0.001). In addition, the epidermal growth factor receptor mutation rate was higher in the adenocarcinoma histologic type (p<0.001). Patients with mutations were older than those without mutations (p=0.003). The most frequent mutations were exon 19 deletions (48.8%, 78/160) and exon 21 L858R point mutations (38.1.1%, 61/160). We also detected compound mutation patterns in three cases (1.9%). CONCLUSION: The prevalence of epidermal growth factor receptor mutations in the Turkish population was slightly higher than that in the Caucasian population and lower than that in the East Asian population. The results of this study may provide guidance in personalized therapy of non-small cell lung cancer in the Turkish population.