Multiple Pulmonary Sclerosing Pneumocytomas (PSPs): A Comprehensive Analysis of Clinicopathological Characteristics and Whole-exome Sequencing (WES) Results

Pulmonary sclerosing pneumocytoma (PSP) is a rare neoplasm with indolent clinical behavior and usually presents as a solitary nodule, while only a few cases involving multiple nodules. Recent studies have revealed frequent AKT1 mutations in PSP; however, the molecular genetics of multiple PSPs remain unclear. To better understand the genetic background, eleven patients (4.2%, 11/260) with multiple PSP nodules were identified, and whole-exome sequencing (WES) was performed on 6 patients. Among 5 patients with 2 or 3 PSP nodules, AKT1 alterations were the most common (50%, 7/14), and the predominant alteration was p.E17K (21.4%, 3/14). Novel ARID1A mutations were the second most common driver (14.3%, 2/14), and we first identified these mutations cooccurred with AKT1 p.E17K mutation. Moreover, we observed limited concordance in the mutation spectra and few comutated genes among different lesions from these 5 patients, indicating that PSP with 2 or 3 nodules were independent arising tumors. No AKT1 mutations were identified in 3 PSP samples from a patient with multiple diffuse nodules. However, there were 17 shared genetic alterations among the 3 lesions, but none were typical driver mutations. The findings on multiple diffuse PSP nodules may also have independent origins, but the potential that some of these nodules are metastatic nodules cannot be excluded. In conclusion, this retrospective study is the largest series of multiple PSP cases and provides new insights into the genomic underpinning of PSP. This work has a potential to broaden our understanding of the pathogenesis and development of these lesions and warrants analysis in larger cohorts.