Purpose: Traditional chemotherapy is the main adjuvant therapy for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). However, the emergence of multi-drug resistance (MDR) has greatly restricted the curative effect of chemotherapy. Therefore, it is necessary to find a method to treat MDR NSCLC clinically. It is worth investigating whether NSCLCs that are resistant to traditional chemotherapy can be effectively treated with tyrosine kinase inhibitors targeting epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR).
Materials and methods: The expression of P-glycoprotein (P-gp) and lung resistance-related protein (LRP) was detected by immunohistochemistry, and mutations in EGFR (exons 19 and 21) and Kirsten rat sarcoma viral oncogene homolog (KRAS) (exon 2) were detected by high-resolution melting analysis (HRMA) of surgical NSCLC specimens from 127 patients who did not undergo traditional chemotherapy or radiotherapy. A Pearson chi-square test was performed to analyze the correlations between the expression of P-gp and LRP and mutations in EGFR and KRAS.
Results: The expression frequencies of P-gp and LRP were significantly higher in adenocarcinomas from non-smoking patients; the expression frequency of LRP was significantly higher in cancer tissue from female patients. The frequency of EGFR mutations was significantly higher in well to moderately differentiated adenocarcinomas from non-smoking female patients. The frequency of EGFR mutations in the cancers that expressed P-gp, LRP, or both P-gp and LRP was significantly higher than that in cancers that did not express P-gp or LRP.
Conclusion: NSCLCs expressing P-gp/LRP bear the EGFR mutation in exon 19 or 21 easily.
Keywords: Chemotherapy; epidermal growth factor receptor-tyrosine kinase inhibitor; multi-drug resistance; non-small cell lung cancer.