Women With Synchronous or Metachronous Lung and Ovarian Cancer: A Multi-Institutional Report

Double diagnosis of lung cancer (LC) and ovarian cancer (OC) is rare. Here, we describe patients with synchronous/metachronous LC and OC to identify common clinical and pathological patterns.

Clinical, pathological and molecular data of patients diagnosed and treated at 30 European Institutions from 2008 to 2018 were retrieved and analysed. Whenever tissue was available, centralized pathology revision was performed.

A total of 19 cases were found; one was excluded at pathology revision. Most LCs were adenocarcinomas (15/18) and most OCs were high-grade serous (15/18) carcinomas. Of the 9 patients analysed, 7 carried oncogene-addicted LC (4 EGFR, 1 B-RAF and 2 ALK) and five out of 7 carried BRCA mutations. One patient with a germline-BRCA1 mutation received olaparib, resulting in a durable response of both malignancies. Median overall survival was 33 months.

In our series, most synchronous/metachronous LCs and OCs showed genetic alterations. Further analyses with wide NGS panel could shed light on the biological mechanisms driving their occurrence.