Occupational exposure to carcinogens may affect the molecular pattern of lung cancers in never-smokers, according to a new study published in the European Respiratory Journal.
Researchers analysed the data of 313 patients from the observational, multicentre cohort BioCAST/IFCT-1002 study, which aimed to assess exposure to several risk factors for lung cancer in lifelong never-smokers.
Among the sample, 40 patients were exposed to at least one occupational carcinogen; 19 were exposed to only one carcinogen, and 21 to two or more.
Asbestos-exposed never-smoker patients were found to have a 20% chance of EGFR mutations, compared to a 44% chance in lung cancer patients who were not exposed to carcinogens.
Carcinogen exposed patients also had a higher rate of HER2 mutations than non-exposed lung cancer patients (18% versus 4%), and the authors note that EGFR and HER2/ERBB2 mutations appeared to have opposite levels of association with asbestos exposure.
A main limitation of the study includes the low numbers of patients in mutation sub-groups, and the relatively small numbers of patients exposed to certain occupational carcinogens.