Abstract
BACKGROUND: Epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors (EGFR-TKIs) has shown a high response rate in the treatment of lung cancer in patients with (EGFR) mutation. The aim of this study is to evaluate the relationship between EGFR mutation status in serum and predicting benefit from EGFR-TKIs therapy in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). METHODS: We examined EGFR mutation status in serum of 80 patients with advanced, EGFR-TKIs given as first-line therapy NSCLC. All patients were received long-term follow-up, and the drug efficacy were observed and evaluated. RESULTS: The EGFR mutation in serum was detected in 33.8% (27/80) of NSCLC patients examined, in which exon 19 deletion mutation was present at a frequency of 44.4% (12/27) and exon 21 point mutation was 55.6% (15/27); The response rate to EGFR-TKI in patients with EGFR mutation in serum was (55.6%, 15/27), which was remarkably higher than that in EGFR wild-type patients (17.0%, 9/53), the difference was statistically significant (χ²=0.370, P<0.001); The median progression free survival (PFS) of patients with EGFR mutation in serum was remarkably better than that of EGFR wild-type patients (9.8 months vs 5.7 months, P=0.014). CONCLUSIONS: In patients with advanced, EGFR-positive in serum NSCLC, EGFR-TKIs given as first-line therapy is associated with improved drug efficacy. The results suggest that it is feasible to use serum to detect EGFR mutation, which can predict a benefit from EGFR-TKIs given as first-line therapy.