Retrospective study reveals high recurrence rates and poor disease-free survival in postoperative HER2-mutant non-small cell lung cancer, indicating a need for aggressive adjuvant therapy.
Key Points
To investigate the clinicopathological characteristics, molecular profiles, and disease-free survival outcomes in patients with surgically resected HER2-mutant non-small cell lung cancer.
Retrospective analysis of 77 patients with surgically resected HER2-mutant non-small cell lung cancer.
HER2 mutation status was evaluated using next-generation sequencing.
HER2 exon 20 insertions were the most prevalent alteration, with 76.6% displaying invasive adenocarcinoma phenotypes including papillary (51.9%) and micropapillary (45.5%) components.
Median disease-free survival was 17.0 months (95% CI, 11.4–22.5), decreasing significantly with an increasing burden of high-risk recurrence factors (0 vs. 1–3 vs. >3 factors: 29.3 vs. 14.2 vs. 7.1 months; P = 0.045).
Postoperative recurrence occurred in 80.5% of patients, predominantly metastasizing to the lungs, while PD-L1 expression status and TP53 alterations demonstrated no significant association with disease-free survival.