Author's reply to: Identification of EGFR mutations in lung sarcomatoid carcinomas

✍ Scribed by Antoine Italiano

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: French
• Weight: 69 KB
• Volume: 128
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0020-7136
• DOI: 10.1002/ijc.25340

✦ Synopsis

We have read with great interest the comments of Leone et al. 1 indicating that they have analyzed a series of 23 cases of lung sarcomatoid carcinomas (SC) and found 2 cases harboring an EGFR mutation. At the time of this writing, 78 cases 1- 7 and 58 cases 1,2,6 of SC have been screened for EGFR and KRAS genes mutation, respectively. EGFR mutations were found in 8 cases. 1,[3][4][5]7 Strikingly, all these mutations but 2 were found in Asian patients. [3][4][5]7 Moreover, in 3 of these cases, EGFR mutations were detected in adenocarcinomatous component, but not in sarcomatoid component. 7 KRAS mutations were found in 18 cases (31%). 1,2,6 All of them were Caucasian patients. When considering only Caucasian patients (n ¼ 58), EGFR mutation appears to be a very rare event in SC (3.5%), whereas KRAS mutation is more frequent than in other typical nonsmall cell lung cancer (mainly adenocarcinomas). Altogether, these pooled data confirm our findings 2 and suggest that most patients with lung SC are not likely to benefit from anti-EGFR therapies.