A Multi-Institutional Surveillance of Clinicopathological Features and Molecular Epidemiology of Egfr Mutations in Lung Cancer Patients Living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus Infection in Japan

Abstract

ABSTRACT Aim: Lung cancer has become a crucial problem among patients living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), causing high mortality in Western countries. Japan has an increasing number of newly infected HIV patients. However, the clinical entities in the East-Asian population are unclear given the identification of ethnic differences in lung cancer in the general population. Methods: Nationwide, retrospective surveillance of patients living with HIV diagnosed with lung cancer from 1986 to 2013 in Japan was performed. This study was supported by a Health and Labour Sciences Research Grant from the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare of Japan (Grant number: H25-AIDS-I-002). Results: 43 lung cancer patients living with HIV were diagnosed (median age, 60.0 years; males, 97.7%; 37.2% early stage, 34.9% advanced stage), 41 of whom were in the antiretroviral therapy era. The median CD4-positive T-cell count was 326 cells/µL. Adenocarcinoma was the most frequent histology (55.8%), followed by squamous cell carcinoma (27.9%). Of the 14 patients in whom epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) status was examined, 5 (35.7%) had EGFR mutations. Median overall survival was 25.1 months for all stages and 7.9 months for the advanced stage. On univariate and multivariate analyses, the only prognostic factor for overall survival was stage (p=0.02). Conclusions: There appear to be ethnic differences in the prevalence of EGFR mutations even in the population living with HIV and the clinical characteristics or outcome may be provided in the regional differences. Disclosure: All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.