Survival analysis in Caucasian pulmonary adenocarcinoma patients based on differential targets between Caucasian and Asian population

Ethnicity differences may contribute to the variety of overall survival in pulmonary adenocarcinoma, while the influence of ethnicity relevant somatic driver mutations (ERSDM) profile on Caucasian survival is not well investigated. In this study, we studied epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), tumor protein p53 (TP53), Kirsten rat sarcoma 2 viral oncogene homolog (KRAS), and Serine/Threonine Kinase 11 (STK11) to construct the ERSDM profile. Those genes were selected as harboring somatic driver mutations with >10% prevalence and with different occurrence between Caucasian and Asian ethnicity. Clinical information and transcriptome sequencing of 173 Caucasian pulmonary adenocarcinoma patients with matched mutation data are retrieved from TCGA, Kaplan-Meier analyses and Cox proportional-hazards regression models are further used to analyze the effect of the ERSDM profile on overall survival. There is no significant correlation between single gene mutation and overall survival, while patients with less than two mutated genes have a better overall survival compared with those with at least two mutated genes (p = 0.034). All of these indicate that multiple mutations in the ERSDM profile may be a negative prognostic factor for overall survival in Caucasian pulmonary adenocarcinoma patients.