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. 2012 Aug;36(4):341-6.
doi: 10.1016/j.canep.2012.01.004. Epub 2012 Mar 3.

Absence of evidence for epidermal growth factor receptor and human homolog of the Kirsten rat sarcoma-2 virus oncogene mutations in breast cancer

Ning Lv  1 , Suxia Lin, Zeming Xie, Jun Tang, Qidong Ge, Minqing Wu, Xinhua Xie, Xiaoming Xie, Weidong Wei
Affiliations

Absence of evidence for epidermal growth factor receptor and human homolog of the Kirsten rat sarcoma-2 virus oncogene mutations in breast cancer

Ning Lv et al. Cancer Epidemiol. 2012 Aug.

Abstract

Aims: The epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) is an available target of effective anti-EGFR therapy for human breast cancer. KRAS, the human homolog of the Kirsten rat sarcoma-2 virus oncogene, encodes a main downstream signaling molecule in the EGFR pathway. The aim of this study was to assess the presence of EGFR and KRAS gene mutations in breast cancer.

Materials and methods: EGFR and KRAS gene mutations were investigated in formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissues from 143 Chinese female patients with breast cancer by means of real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR).

Results: Based on RT-PCR, 2/143 (1.4%) samples and 1/143 (0.7%) had EGFR and KRAS gene mutations, respectively. Overall, none of the cases was identified with mutations of both of these two genes.

Conclusions: In this study, both EGFR and KRAS mutations were present rarely in this cohort of samples with breast cancer. This suggested that mutation analyses for EGFR and KRAS are not useful as screening tests for sensitivity to anti-EGFR therapy for breast carcinomas.

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