Clinicopathological profile of lung cancer at a tertiary care center

Lung cancer is one of the most common malignancies with high morbidity and mortality. Nonsmall cell lung cancer (NSCLC) accounts for majority of cases. AIMS: This study aims to study the clinical and pathological features of lung cancer patients treated at our institute between January 2011 and December 2016.

It is a retrospective study. 446 patients of lung cancer were retrospectively analyzed for demographic data, history of smoking, histological type, and presence of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutation/anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) mutations.

Of the 446 patients analyzed, 304 (68%) were males and 142 (32%) were females, with the ratio being 2:1. Most of our patients had a lesion localizing to the right side (45.7%) than left (37.8%). NSCLC was reported in 81.1% of our patients. EGFR mutation was found in 60 (24%) patients, the most common mutation being the deletion of exon 19 (73%) followed by L858R mutation (21.6%).

EGFR and ALK mutation testing of all the lung cancer patients is to be encouraged as these mutations form druggable targets.