Molecular characterization of lung squamous cell carcinoma tumors reveals therapeutically relevant alterations

Introduction: Unlike lung adenocarcinoma patients, there is no FDA-approved targeted-therapy likely to benefit lung squamous cell carcinoma patients.

Materials and methods: We performed survival analyses of lung squamous cell carcinoma patients harboring therapeutically relevant alterations identified by whole exome sequencing and mass spectrometry-based validation across 430 lung squamous tumors.

Results: We report a mean of 11.6 mutations/Mb with a characteristic smoking signature along with mutations in TP53 (65%), CDKN2A (20%), NFE2L2 (20%), FAT1 (15%), KMT2C (15%), LRP1B (15%), FGFR1 (14%), PTEN (10%) and PREX2 (5%) among lung squamous cell carcinoma patients of Indian descent. In addition, therapeutically relevant EGFR mutations occur in 5.8% patients, significantly higher than as reported among Caucasians. In overall, our data suggests 13.5% lung squamous patients harboring druggable mutations have lower median overall survival, and 19% patients with a mutation in at least one gene, known to be associated with cancer, result in significantly shorter median overall survival compared to those without mutations.

Conclusions: We present the first comprehensive landscape of genetic alterations underlying Indian lung squamous cell carcinoma patients and identify EGFR, PIK3CA, KRAS and FGFR1 as potentially important therapeutic and prognostic target.