Clinicopathological features and EGFR gene mutation status in elderly patients with resected non–small-cell lung cancer

Clinicopathological features and EGFR gene mutation status in elderly patients with resected non–small-cell lung cancer

BMC Cancer, August 2014

25152277

Teppei Nishii, Tomoyuki Yokose, Yohei Miyagi, Yataro Daigo, Hiroyuki Ito, Tetsuya Isaka, Kentaro Imai, Shuji Murakami, Tetsuro Kondo, Haruhiro Saito, Fumihiro Oshita, Kouzo Yamada, Shoichi Matsukuma, Masahiro Tsuboi, Haruhiko Nakayama, Munetaka Masuda

The rapid aging of the population in Japan has been accompanied by an increased rate of surgery for lung cancer among elderly patients. It is thus an urgent priority to map out a treatment strategy for elderly patients with primary lung cancer. Although surgical resection remains standard treatment for early stage non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), it is now essential to confirm the status of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) gene mutations when planning treatment strategies. Furthermore, several studies have reported that EGFR mutations are an independent prognostic marker in NSCLC. However, the relations between age group and the molecular and pathological characteristics of NSCLC remain unclear. We studied the status of EGFR mutations in elderly patients with NSCLC and examined the relations of EGFR mutations to clinicopathological factors and outcomes according to age group.