A case of lung adenocarcinoma harboring EGFR mutation and EML4-ALK fusion gene

BMC Cancer

Hisashi Tanaka¹  Akihito Hayashi¹  Takeshi Morimoto¹  Kageaki Taima¹  Yoshihito Tanaka¹  Michiko Shimada¹  Akira Kurose²  Shingo Takanashi¹  Ken Okumura¹ 

[1] Hirosaki University Graduate School of Medicine, Course of Medical Sciences, Cardiology, Respiratory Medicine and Nephrology, Zaifu-cho 5, Hirosaki, 036-8562, Japan

[2] Department of Diagnostic Pathology, Hirosaki University Graduate School of Medicine, Hirosaki, Japan

关键词: Erlotinib;    EML4-ALK;    EGFR mutation;    Lung cancer;   

Others  :  1080053
DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2407-12-558

 received in 2012-03-27, accepted in 2012-11-20,  发布年份 2012

【 摘 要 】

Background

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide. Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) - tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) is used for the patients with EGFR-mutant lung cancer. Recently, phase III studies in the patients with EGFR-mutant demonstrated that EGFR-TKI monotherapy improved progression-free survival compared with platinum-doublet chemotherapy. The echinoderm microtubule-associated protein-like 4 (EML4) - anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) fusion oncogene represents one of the newest molecular targets in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Patients who harbor EML4-ALK fusions have been associated with a lack of EGFR or KRAS mutations.

Case presentation

We report a 39-year-old patient diagnosed as adenocarcinoma harboring EGFR mutation and EML4-ALK fusion gene. We treated this patient with erlotinib as the third line therapy, but no clinical benefit was obtained.

Conclusion

We experienced a rare case with EGFR mutation and EML4-ALK. Any clinical benefit using EGFR-TKI was not obtained in our case. The therapeutic choice for the patients with more than one driver mutations is unclear. We needs further understanding of the lung cancer molecular biology and the biomarker infomation.

【 授权许可】

   
2012 Tanaka et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

【 图 表 】

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