Abstract:
Lung cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer and the leading cause of cancerrelated death in men in Algeria. We carried out this study to assess clinicopathological
aspects and risk factors of lung cancer in Eastern Algeria and to investigate EGFR
mutation status in a cohort of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
A retrospective study was conducted on 169 cases of lung cancer at the Benbadis
university hospital, between Jun 2015 and December 2020. Clinical and pathological
parameters were investigated based on the data found in the patients’ medical records.
EGFR mutations and protein expression were examined in 58 NSCLC FFPE samples
using capillary sequencing and immunohistochemistry, respectively.
Patients with lung cancer showed a male predominance with a sex-ratio of 7.4, with a
median age of 61 years. The smoking was estimated as 78.2% in men, while all women
were non-smokers. Histologically, adenocarcinoma was the most common histological
type (56.2%), followed by squamous cell carcinoma (23%), while small cell carcinoma
represented 5.4%. Majority of our patient (over 77%) have advanced stage at the time of
diagnosis. The EGFR mutations were found in 39.6% of NSCLC patients, with the
predominance of L585R point mutation. They were associated with histologically
confirmed adenocarcinoma and early stages of the disease, while had no relationship with
age, gender, or smoking status.
In conclusion, our study revealed that most patients with lung cancer were diagnosed with
adenocarcinoma and at an advanced stage, with smoking as the most important risk factor
in men. Our NSCLC patients exhibited a high rate of EGFR mutations. Thus, the primary
prevention, based mainly on tobacco control, and the access to anti-EGFR based
treatments, may be the best strategies to reduce lung cancer morbidity and mortality.
