EGFR gene-mutation status correlated with therapeutic decision making in lung adenocarcinoma

The purpose of this study was to investigate the correlation between EGFR-mutation status and treatment efficacy for advanced lung adenocarcinoma patients. A total of 47 patients receiving erlotinib as first-line therapy were divided into two groups: the EGFR gene mutation group included 19 patients with known EGFR-sensitive mutations, and the EGFR-mutation status-unknown group comprised 28 patients with unknown EGFR-mutation status. Both objective response rate and disease-control rate were significantly higher in the EGFR-mutation group compared with the EGFR-unknown group (42.1% vs 14.2%, P=0.032; 94.7% vs 57.1%, P=0.005). Age, sex, smoking history, stage of disease, and tissue-sample source were not significantly correlated with the distributions of mutation status. In conclusion, it is important for advanced lung adenocarcinoma patients to undergo gene analysis before being assigned a molecularly targeted drug as first-line treatment.