Epidermal growth factor receptor exon 20 mutation increased in post-chemotherapy patients with non-small cell lung cancer detected with patients' blood samples.

PURPOSE: Patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)-mutations have excellent response to EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs), and exon 20 mutation accounts for most of TKI drug resistance. Nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to detect EGFR exon 20 mutations of patients with NSCLC after chemotherapy. The same is being analyzed with patients' characteristics.
METHODS: Peripheral blood samples were collected from 273 patients with NSCLC, including 143 with adenocarcinoma (ADC) and 130 with squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), after chemotherapy. DNA was extracted from whole blood for nested PCR amplification and purification. Sequencing was carried out in an automated 3730 sequencer, followed by analysis of EGFR exon 20 mutations from nested PCR products.
RESULTS: The mutations of EGFR exon 20 were mainly point mutations in rs1050171 (c.2361A>G) and rs56183713 (c.2457G>A). The point mutation was 28.21%, 28.46%, and 27.97% in patients with NSCLC, ADC and SCC, respectively. Men had an equivalent mutation (27.18%) to women (30.77%). The mutation in smokers and nonsmokers was 27.68% and 29.17%, respectively. In unselected patients, there was no correlation between EGFR exon 20 mutations and patients' characteristics of age, gender, smoking history, histologic type, or tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) staging system. In subgroup analyses, the EGFR mutation of patients with SCC was correlated with TNM stage [P = .013; odds ratio = 1.758; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.125-2.747].
CONCLUSIONS: The data indicate that the chemotherapy may induce EGFR-TKI-resistant mutation in NSCLC cells and EGFR-TKI should be used in the early stage of NSCLC but not after chemotherapy.