Inter- and Intratumor Heterogeneity of EGFR Compound Mutations in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancers: Analysis of Five Cases

Background: Several clinical and preclinical studies suggest that non-small cell lung cancers (NSCLCs) with EGFR compound mutations were associated with lower efficacies of first-generation EGFR inhibitors than tumors with single EGFR mutation. Some researchers hypothesize that EGFR mutation status is heterogeneous in such tumors and that second-generation EGFR inhibitors may eliminate cancer cells with uncommon EGFR mutations from tumors with EGFR compound mutations. However, this hypothesis is currently unproven; therefore, we performed the current study to determine if tumor cells with EGFR compound mutations are present in heterogeneous or homogeneous manners.

Patients and methods: Multiregion analysis was performed for surgically resected primary NSCLC tumors with EGFR compound mutations to examine the intratumor heterogeneity of EGFR compound mutations. In addition, we evaluated the intertumor heterogeneity of EGFR compound mutations using 2 pleural disseminations obtained from a patient with NSCLC at exploratory thoracotomy and 9 primary or metastatic lesions obtained from 2 autopsied NSCLC patients. Digital polymerase chain reaction, target sequencing, or direct sequencing were used to detect EGFR mutations.

Results: This study included 5 NSCLC cases; their compound mutations were L858R+S768I, G719X+S768I, G719A+R776H, L858R+E709G, and L858R+I759M. Noncancerous pulmonary tissues from each patient did not harbor EGFR mutations, which revealed that all mutations were somatic. We did not detect any intra- or intertumor heterogeneity in these EGFR compound mutations.

Conclusion: No intra- or intertumor heterogeneity was observed for EGFR compound mutations. Our results indicate that both EGFR mutations were truncal and selective elimination of cancer cells with uncommon EGFR mutations is unrealistic.