EPIDERMAL GROWTH FACTOR RECEPTOR OVEREXPRESSION INIMMUNOHISTOCHEMISTRY HAS NO SIGNIFICANCE IN THESURVIVAL OF PATIENTS WITH NONSMALL CELL LUNG CANCER

Abstract

Background: Lung cancer is the most common cause for the cancer related mortality
worldwide. It is important to define the prognostic markers for this deadliest disease so that we
can predict the survival of the patient and treatment outcome.
Objectives: To estimate the prevalence of EGFR overexpression in NSCLC with
immunohistochemistry and to determine its prognostic significance.
Materials & methods: 45 cases with histological diagnosis of NSCLC diagnosed in a tertiary
care hospital, north Kerala were selected and immunohistochemistry for was performed on their
bronchoscopic specimens and they were followed up and their survival at 6th month was noted.
Results: EGFR positivity was noted in 28.89% of nonsmall cell lung carcinoma. In this study
We didn’t get any significant correlation between EGFR overexpression and
survival/histology/stage of the disease. A statistically significant correlation was seen between
the stage of the disease and survival (p values – 0.003). Patients with stage III disease showed
higher proportion of EGFR positivity but it was not statistically significant.
Conclusion: The prognostic significance of EGFR remains to be defined. IHC assesses the
EGFR as total cellular level rather than its activated form, which is probably the only formaffecting prognosis and IHC relies more on the subjective judgements. So the priority should be
given to the standardisation of the techniques used to assess the overexpression of EGFR. But
EGFR overexpression can be used as a predictive factor.