Significance of laser microdissection-enriched tumor cells in detection of gene mutation

Objective To study the effect of laser microdissection-enriched tumor cells on detection of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) gene mutation in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and its clinicopathological significance. Methods Paraffinembedded tumor cells from 49 NSCLC patients were enriched by laser microdissection. EGFR gene fragments from exon 18 to 21 were amplified by PCR and sequenced. The EGFR gene mutations in NSCLC were compared with those in other cancers. Results Of the 49 NSCLC samples, 21 (42.9%) had EGFR gene mutations including exon 19 mutation in 13 and exon 21 mutation in 8. However, both exon 19 and exon 21 mutations were not detected. The analysis of exon mutations showed that the mutation rate was higher in laser microdissection-enriched samples than in conventional tumor tissue samples (42.9% vs 34.7%, P< 0.05). The mutation peak was significantly higher in the former than in the latter. Conclusion Laser microdissection-enriched tumor cells can effectively prevent the intervention of tumor cell genome against interstitial cells, ref l ect the status of tumor cells genome, effectively improve the detection rate of EGFR gene mutations, thus contributing to the clinical screening of target therapy for NSCLC patients.