Research of fusion EML4-ALK in lung adenocarcinomas and its correlation with clinical and histopathological findings

Akciğer Adenokarsinomlarında EML4-ALK Füzyonunun Araştırılması ve Klinik, Histopatolojik Bulgularla Korelasyonu Introduction-Aim: Lung cancer is a kind of cancer which causes of death all over the world. Smoking is the most important factor causing lung cancer. Adenocarcinomas the most common histological type of lung cancer. In general, lung cancer is diagnosed at an advanced stage, and it provides 5-year survival with conventional chemotherapy, but only 15%. The fusion EMLA-ALK is determined as 3-5 % rate in lung adenocarcinomas. Tyrosine kinase inhibitors in the adenocarcinomas which have the positiveness of EMLA-ALK, have significant effects on survival when it encounters with standard chemotherapy in targeted therapy. The aim in this study is to search of fusion EMLA-ALK in lung adenocarcinomas and to prove the relationship with clinical and histopathological findings. Material-Method: 117 lung adenocarcinoma events got into study which got diagnosis between 2006 and 2013 in the Pathology Department of the Medical Faculty of Çukurova University. FISH Method was applied for 3 µm thick-cuts getting from paraffin blocks belong to the events. Findings: The positiveness of EMLA-ALK in lung adenocarcinomas is determined as 5.1 % rate. All positive events are male and the mean age is 66.3. All patients have smoking habit. 3 cases are stage III, 2 cases are stage II, 1 case is stage I and average tumor size is 5.9 cm. Any significant relationship could not be found among age (p:0.595), sex (p:0.595), smoking history (p:0.587), tumor size (p:1.000) and clinic stage (p:1.000) with ALK positiveness in the statistical analysis done. Five cases are in mikst type which solid and acinar pattern is mostly dominant and one case is mucinous adenocarcinoma. Two cases contain signet ring cells and one case contains clear cells. Result: As a result, any significant relationship could not be found among age, sex, smoking habit, stage, tumor size with ALK positiveness lung adenocarcinomas in our study. ALK positiveness is related to solid, acinar growing pattern and signet ring cells. Keywords: Lung adenocarcinoma, EML4-ALK, FISH