A brief report on the mutational landscape in non-small cell lung cancer of South Asian patients: Comparison at a US and an Indian Institution

BACKGROUND: Various molecular underpinnings of lung cancer have been noted in Asian populations, especially with targetable oncogenic drivers such as EGFR mutations and ALK rearrangements, although they have been lesser described in South Asian/Indian patients METHODS: Tumour molecular testing results from non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients with a name of South Asian origin and diagnosed from 2005 to 2019 at the Stanford Cancer Center in the United States were retrospectively reviewed and compared to the results of molecular testing from PGIMER in Chandigarh, India, from the patients diagnosed from 2011 to 2019 RESULTS: We identified 72 patients of South Asian (largely Indian) origin, of whom 64 patients (51% female) had mutational testing at Stanford. Of the tested patients, 33% of cases harboured either an EGFR exon 19 deletion or exon 21 L858R mutation, and 12.5% had ALK rearrangements. At PGIMER, a larger sample of 1,264 patients was identified (33% female), with 22.5% of patients having two main EGFR activating mutations, and 9.5% harbouring an ALK rearrangement CONCLUSIONS: South Asian, largely Indian, patients with NSCLC appear to have a higher chance of harbouring EGFR mutations and ALK translocation as compared to Caucasians. The percentage of South Asian patients with these molecular abnormalities was largely similar in two different geographical locations. These findings corroborate prior single-institution findings and emphasise the importance of molecular testing.