Epidemiology of driver mutations in lung cancer in a German tertiary hospital in patients with testing indication

Background: KRAS, BRAF, EGFR and ALK-mutation testing is a prerequisite for non-small-cell lung cancer treatments, but there remains limited epidemiological information about such mutations in German cohorts. Materials & methods: Between February 2010 and June 2015, a total of 1080 tumor samples from 1019 non-small-cell lung cancer patients were analyzed for KRAS, BRAF, EGFR and ALK-mutations by Therascreen-pyrosequencing and FISH. Results: Mutation patterns differed dependent on the histological subtype and sex. Mainly, adenocarcinomas were mutated and formed the major histological group. Double mutations were observed also not explicitly screened for. In our German cohort, female adenocarcinoma patients had statistically significantly higher rates EGFR mutations than male patients. Discussion: The different mutation patterns dependent on histological phenotypes warrant further epidemiological studies while suggesting different mechanisms of cancerogenesis