Detection of EGFR mutation and its association with clinicopathological features of non-small cell lung cancer patients

Alterations in the epidermal growth factor receptor were confirmed to take a significant role in targeted therapy for patients with lung cancer. Studied 299 non-small cell lung cancer patients to determine the distribution of EGFR mutation and its relationship with clinicopathological characteristics of patients. EGFR mutations were analysed by allele-specific PCR on the Cobas z480 system, and the association between EGFR mutations and patient characteristics was analysed by Pearson Chi-square test and Fisher extract test. The results showed that the frequency of EGFR mutation was 38.8%, in which, Ex19Del and L858R substitution were predominant among overall mutation, 45.4% and 29.1%, respectively. There was no difference between EGFR mutations with age, specimen type, tumour size and histopathological subtype. However, there was a strong correlation between EGFR mutation and gender and tumour status (p<0.05). In particularly, Ex19Del and L858R mutation were positively associated with females, while the G719X substitution mainly occurred in male patients.