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A Comprehensive Meta-Analysis of Association between EGFR Mutation Status and Brain Metastases in NSCLC

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Pathology & Oncology Research

Abstract

Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutation have different clinicopathological characteristics compared with EGFR wild type NSCLC. A growing number of studies focused on the relevance between EGFR mutation status and brain metastases (BM) in NSCLC, but it remains controversial. Therefore, this study performed a comprehensive meta-analysis to untangle this issue. Several electronic databases including Pubmed, Embase, Web of science and Cochrane database were thoroughly searched. The odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence interval (95%CI) was pooled to evaluate the relevance. Meta-regression analysis and subgroup analysis were conducted according to the heterogeneity. A total of 26 studies were identified finally in this meta-analysis. The overall OR was 1.58 (95%CI: 1.36–1.84), which indicated that EGFR mutation had a positive association with BM of NSCLC. The subgroup analysis resulted from eleven studies with lung adenocarcinoma revealed a higher possibility of BM in NSCLC with EGFR mutation compared with EGFR wild (p < 0.05). There was no significant difference in the risk of BM between NSCLC EGFR exon 19 mutation and exon 21 point mutation (p = 0.23). This meta-analysis suggests that EGFR mutation can be a risk factor for BM in NSCLC.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Dr. Han (Department of Radiation Oncology, Hubei Cancer Hospital, Wuhan, HB, China), and Dr. Hsu (Abbotsford Centre, BC Cancer Agency, British Columbia, Canada) for the data provides in this analysis.

This manuscript is supported by the National Natural Science Foundations of China (Juan Ren, 81772793/H1621, Juan Ren, 31201060/C0709; Juan Ren, 30973175/H1621; and Juan Ren,81772793/H1621); Supported by Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University (Juan Ren, NCET-12-0440); The Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Juan Ren, 2012); Clinical Research Award of the First Affiliated Hospital of Xi’an Jiaotong University, China (Juan Ren, No. XJTU1AHCR2014-041).

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Contributions: (I) Conception and design: L Tan, Y Wu, J Ren; (II) Administrative support: J Ren; (III) Provision of study materials or patients: Y Wu, L Tan; (IV) Collection and assembly of data: X Ma, Y Yan, S Shao, J Ren; (V) Data analysis and interpretation: J Liu, H Ma, R Liu, L Chai, J Ren; (VI) Manuscript writing: All authors; (VII) Final approval of manuscript: All authors.

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Tan, L., Wu, Y., Ma, X. et al. A Comprehensive Meta-Analysis of Association between EGFR Mutation Status and Brain Metastases in NSCLC. Pathol. Oncol. Res. 25, 791–799 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12253-019-00598-0

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