Introduction

Pulmonary carcinoma is the leading cause of cancer deaths in the world; the expression of the epidermal growth factor receptor in lung carcinoma tissue occurs in the adenocarcinoma lineage. The use of tyrosine kinase inhibitors that act on said receptor has increased survival beyond two years in mutated EGFR patients.

Objective

To know the effect of tyrosine kinase inhibitors in the survival of patients with pulmonary adenocarcinoma, mutated EGFR.

Material and methods

An observational, analytical, retrospective, transversal study was conducted over a period of two years (2013 to 2015), including patients with a confirmed diagnosis of lung cancer and the presence of the mutated EGFR performed by FISH (fluorescent in situ hybridization). The survival was evaluated by Kaplan-Meier test/Cox regression, considering a statistical significance associated with a p ≤ 0.005.

Results

Thirteen patients were included; their average age was 66.77 ± 9.356 years, with a median of 67 years; 46.2% were women and 53.8% men. The most common type of deletion was of exon 19 (in 61.5%); the second was of L858R (in 38.5%). Three (23%) patients were smokers and 10 (77%) reported not to be; eight (61%) presented deletion of exon 19 and five (39%) deletion of L858R. By the end of the study, six patients had survived (46%) and seven died (54%). The Kaplan-Meier method showed 21.95 months of survival (95% CI 17.3-26.61).