EGFR, KRAS Most Prevalent Mutations in Hispanic, Latino Patients With Lung Cancer

Patients of Hispanic/Latino ethnicity have a greater prevalence of certain lung cancer driver mutations than Asian and European individuals, according to a recent meta-analysis.

A team of researchers, led by Rafael Parra-Medina, MD, PhD, examined how common genes, such as ALK, BRAF, EGFR, HER2, KRAS, MET, NTRK, RET, and ROS1, were in this specific population. They used the EMBASE, LILACS, MEDLINE, and Virtual Health Library databases to identify studies that were included in the analysis.

Fifty-five articles met inclusion and exclusion criteria and included Hispanic/Latino patients with lung cancer from the following countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Puerto Rico, United States, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

Half of the patients were men (50.9%), 65.8% had a history of tobacco exposure, and 59.2% had stage IV disease.

The researchers discovered that EGFR (22%) and KRAS (14%) were the two most commonly found genes in this population across all the countries. Among the EGFR-positive patients, the most frequent mutations were deletion 19 (10%) and L858R (7%). In patients with KRAS gene mutations, KRAS^G12C was the most prevalent mutation (7%).

The prevalence of the other mutation drivers was as follows: ALK (5%); HER2 (4%); MET (3%); ROS1, BRAF, and RET (2%); and NTRK (1%).

Because of these differences, the researchers recommended testing Latin American patients with next-generation sequencing (NGS) at different stages and enrolling them in clinical trials to get a clear understanding of the prevalence of actionable driver mutations.