Assessment of applicability of archived cytological lung cancer specimens for molecular genetic analysis
Molecular genetic analysis of lung tumors is often essential for the proper choice of therapy. EGFR mutation is a well-known marker of sensitivity to gefitinib, erlotinib and afatinib; ALK-translocations make tumor sensitive to several ALK inhibitors; low intratumoral expression of DNA repair genes (ERCC1, BRCA1, etc.) may increase the therapeutic index of platinum-based drugs. Usually these markers are evaluated using formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tumor tissues. The goal of this work was to assess utility of archived cytological lung cancer specimens as an alternative source of material for molecular genetic testing. We analyzed paired histological and cytological lung adenocarcinoma specimens. Comparison of results within the pairs showed that cytological material can be used instead of histological material for qualitative analyses (detection of EGFR mutations or ALK-translocations); however, gene expression measurements, obtained by quantitative real-time PCR, may differ significantly in histological and cytological samples from the same patient.