When someone has cancer, the first crucial step is to decide how serious the condition is and his/her chances of survival. This act of estimation of how the disease will treat the patient is – ‘prognosis’. This blog is an assessment of clinical and genetic traits found in never-smoker patients with SCLC.
Factors affecting prognosis:
- The type of cancer and affected body organ
- Stage of the cancer and the extent of its reach
- Grade of the cancer i.e. how abnormal it looks upon microscopic inspection
- Behavior of the cancer cell
- Age of the patient and previous health conditions
- Response to the treatment
Never-smokers are identified with a distinct clinical entity; meaning a different set of conditions and existence. According to a study in South Korea on a number of Small Cell Lung Cancer patients (n=391), the number of nonsmoker SCLC patients have increased over time yet are found to have a better prognosis than smokers. This suggest that, they can be approached with a specific set of treatment procedures and can have better chances of survival. However, in medical terms a ‘never-smoker’ refers to an individual who has smoked fewer than 100 cigarettes in his/her lifetime.
Procedures:
SCLC patients were grouped into never-smokers and smokers. For the former, a somatic mutation profiling was done using AmpliSeqTM Cancer Hotspot Panel V2 along with next-generation ion Torrent semiconductor sequencing technology. PNAClampTM was used to confirm Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR) mutation.
Results:
The clinical result of both the group were then compared. A total of 391 patients with SCLC were treated for a period of 5 years.
The findings are:
- 50 (13%) patients were found never-smokers.
- The median overall survival was 18.2 months for never-smokers and 13.1 months for smokers (p = 0.054)
- Never-smoking alone gives a good prognostic factor: (HR=0.645, 95% CI: 0.456 – 0.914) at lower age (HR=0.709, 95% CI: 0.566 – 0.888)
- The objective response rate (ORR) to Etoposide and Cisplatin Chemotherapy (EP/PE) were similar for never-smoker(75%) and smoker(81%) patients.
Among 28 never-smoker patients; 4 cases of EGRF mutations were found:
- Two cases with L858R (mutation within the exon 21 which encodes part of Kinase domain)
- One case with exon 19 deletion
- One case with G719A (mutation within the exon 18 which encodes part of Kinase domain)
- Other mutations include: TP53, RB1, PTEN, MET, SMAD4
Conclusion:
The above mentioned findings suggest that SCLC among never-smokers is pervasive and increasing significantly. Moreover they are proved to have a better prognosis than smokers. In other words they are in better shape
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