Lymph node involvement according to lung adenocarcinoma subtypes: lymph node involvement is influenced by lung adenocarcinoma subtypes

Clinicopathological and molecular characterization of resected lung adenocarcinoma: Correlations with histopathological grading systems in Chinese patients

PURPOSE

Driver mutations inform lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) targeted therapy. Association of histopathological attributes and molecular profiles facilitates clinically viable testing platforms. We assessed correlations between LUAD clinicopathological features, mutational landscapes, and two grading systems among Chinese cases.

METHODS

79 Chinese LUAD patients undergoing resection were subjected to targeted sequencing. 68 were invasive nonmucinous adenocarcinoma (INMA), graded via: predominant histologic pattern-based grading system (P-GS) or novel IASLC grading system (I-GS). Driver mutation distributions were appraised and correlated with clinical and pathological data.

RESULTS

Compared to INMA, non-INMA exhibited smaller, well-differentiated tumors with higher mucin content. INMA grade correlated with size, lymph invasion (P-GS), and driver/EGFR mutations. Mutational spectra varied markedly between grades, with EGFR p.L858R and exon 19 deletion mutations predominating in lower grades; while high-grade P-GS tumors often harbored EGFR copy number variants and complex alterations alongside wild-type cases. I-GS upgrade of P-GS grade 2 to grade 3 was underpinned by ≥20 % high-grade regions bearing p.L858R or ALK fusions. Both systems defined tumors of distinctive phenotypic attributes and molecular genotypes.

CONCLUSIONS

INMA represent larger, mucin-poor, molecularly heterogeneous LUAD with divergent grade-specific mutation profiles. Stronger predictor of clinicopathological attributes and driver mutations, P-GS stratification offers greater accuracy for molecular testing. A small panel encompassing EGFR and ALK captures the majority of P-GS grade 1/2 mutations whereas expanded panels are optimal for grade 3.

Correlation analysis of MRD positivity in patients with completely resected stage I-IIIA non-small cell lung cancer: a cohort study

Background

The primary objective of this study is to thoroughly investigate the intricate correlation between postoperative molecular residual disease (MRD) status in individuals diagnosed with stage I-IIIA non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and clinicopathological features, gene mutations, the tumour immune microenvironment and treatment effects.

Methods

The retrospective collection and analysis were carried out on the clinical data of ninety individuals diagnosed with stage I-IIIA NSCLC who underwent radical resection of lung cancer at our medical facility between January 2021 and March 2022. The comprehensive investigation encompassed an evaluation of multiple aspects including the MRD status, demographic information, clinicopathological characteristics, results from genetic testing, the tumor immune microenvironment, and treatment effects.

Results

No significant associations were observed between postoperative MRD status and variables such as gender, age, smoking history, pathological type, and gene mutations. However, a statistically significant correlation was found between MRD positivity and T (tumor diameter > 3 cm) as well as N (lymph node metastasis) stages (p values of 0.004 and 0.003, respectively). It was observed that higher proportions of micropapillary and solid pathological subtypes within lung adenocarcinoma were associated with increased rates of MRD-positivity after surgery (p = 0.007;0.005). MRD positivity demonstrated a correlation with the presence of vascular invasion (p = 0.0002). For the expression of programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1), tumour positive score (TPS) ≥ 1% and combined positive score (CPS) ≥ 5 were correlated with postoperative MRD status (p value distribution was 0.0391 and 0.0153). In terms of ctDNA elimination, among patients identified as having postoperative MRD and lacking gene mutations, postoperative adjuvant targeted therapy demonstrated superiority over chemotherapy (p = 0.027).

Conclusion

Postoperative ctDNA-MRD status in NSCLC patients exhibits correlations with the size of the primary tumor, lymph node metastasis, pathological subtype of lung adenocarcinoma, presence of vascular invasion, as well as TPS and CPS values for PD-L1 expression; in postoperative patients with MRD, the effectiveness of adjuvant EGFR-TKI targeted therapy exceeds that of chemotherapy, as evidenced by the elimination of ctDNA.

[Risk Factors and Sampling Range Evaluation of Lymph node Metastasis for Non-small Cell Lung Cancer with Diameter ≤2 cm]

BACKGROUND

More early-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) are diagnosed in time and treated surgically, but systematic lymph node dissection can not bring enough survival benefits for them, and even increase the probability of postoperative complications. This study aims to analyze the risk factors and evaluate mediastinal lymph node metastasis sites in different lung lobes for NSCLC with diameter ≤2 cm, so as to provide reference for surgery.

METHODS

We collected 1051 patients with pulmonary nodule diameter ≤2 cm who were treated by pulmonary lobectomy with lymph node sampling/dissection in Department of Thoracic Surgery of the First Affiliated Hospital with Nanjing Medical University from December 2009 to December 2019. SPSS 26.0 statistical software was used for statistical analysis, to explore the risk factors and evaluate mediastinal lymph node metastasis sites in different lung lobes.

RESULTS

95 of 1051 (9.04%) patients presented lymph node metastasis. Male, pathological non-adenocarcinoma, 1 cm0.05). Lymph nodes in group N1 were significantly correlated with lymph node metastasis in groups #2R, #4R, #5, #6, #7 and #9 (P<0.01).

CONCLUSIONS

Lobe-specific lymph node dissection (LSND) can be performed for early-stage NSCLC. Male, pathological non-adenocarcinoma, 1 cm Collapse

Key Words

• Lobe-specific lymph node sampling
• Lung neoplasms
• Lymph node metastasis
• Risk factors

Collapse

MESH Headings

• Humans
• Male
• Carcinoma, Non-Small-Cell Lung/surgery
• Lymphatic Metastasis
• Lung Neoplasms/surgery
• Adenocarcinoma
• Small Cell Lung Carcinoma

Collapse

Grants Collapse

Affiliation(s)

Tianyu JIN
Zhicheng HE
Zhihua LI
Jianwei TANG
Jing XU
Weibing WU
Liang CHEN 陈亮，E-mail:

Collapse

Histology of the Primary Tumor Correlates with False Positivity of Integrated 18F-FDG-PET/CT Lymph Node Staging in Resectable Lung Cancer Patients

This study aimed to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy and false positivity rate of lymph node (LN) staging assessed by integrated 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission computed tomography (18F-FDG-PET/CT) in patients with operable lung cancer to the tumor histology. In total, 129 consecutive patients with non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) undergoing anatomical lung resections were included. Preoperative LN staging was evaluated in the relationship to the histology of the resected specimens (group 1: lung adenocarcinoma/LUAD; group 2: squamous cell carcinoma/SQCA). Statistical analysis was performed by the Mann-Whitney U-test, the chi² test, and binary logistic regression analysis. To establish an easy-to-use algorithm for the identification of LN false positivity, a decision tree including clinically meaningful parameters was generated. In total, 77 (59.7%) and 52 (40.3%) patients were included in the LUAD and SQCA groups, respectively. SQCA histology, non-G1 tumors, and tumor SUVmax > 12.65 were identified as independent predictors of LN false positivity in the preoperative staging. The corresponding ORs and their 95% CIs were 3.35 [1.10-10.22], p = 0.0339; 4.60 [1.06-19.94], p = 0.0412; and 2.76 [1.01-7.55], and p = 0.0483. The preoperative identification of false-positive LNs is an important aspect of the treatment regimen for patients with operable lung cancer; thus, these preliminary findings should be further evaluated in larger patient cohorts.

[Advances in the Study of Invasive Non-mucinous Adenocarcinoma with Different Pathological Subtypes]

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the world today, and adenocarcinoma is the most common histopathological type of lung cancer. In May 2021, World Health Organization (WHO) released the 5th edition of the WHO classification of thoracic tumors, which classifies invasive non-mucinous adenocarcinoma (INMA) into lepidic adenocarcinoma, acinar adenocarcinoma, papillary adenocarcinoma, solid adenocarcinoma, and micropapillary adenocarcinoma based on its histological characteristics. These five pathological subtypes differ in clinical features, treatment and prognosis. A complete understanding of the characteristics of these subtypes is essential for the clinical diagnosis, treatment options, and prognosis predictions of patients with lung adenocarcinoma, including recurrence and progression. This article will review the grading system, morphology, imaging prediction, lymph node metastasis, surgery, chemotherapy, targeted therapy and immunotherapy of different pathological subtypes of INMA.
.

Cost-Sensitive Uncertainty Hypergraph Learning for Identification of Lymph Node Involvement With CT Imaging

Lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) is the most common type of lung cancer. Accurate identification of lymph node (LN) involvement in patients with LUAD is crucial for prognosis and making decisions of the treatment strategy. CT imaging has been used as a tool to identify lymph node involvement. To tackle the shortage of high-quality data and improve the sensitivity of diagnosis, we propose a Cost-Sensitive Uncertainty Hypergraph Learning (CSUHL) model to identify the lymph node based on the CT images. We design a step named "Multi-Uncertainty Measurement" to measure the epistemic and the aleatoric uncertainty, respectively. Given the two types of attentional uncertainty weights, we further propose a cost-sensitive hypergraph learning to boost the sensitivity of diagnosing, targeting task-driven optimization of the clinical scenarios. Extensive qualitative and quantitative experiments on the real clinical dataset demonstrate our method is capable of accurately identifying the lymph node and outperforming state-of-the-art methods across the board.

Significant difference in recurrence according to the proportion of high grade patterns in stage IA lung adenocarcinoma

BACKGROUND

Patients with early lung cancer are the best candidates for surgical resection. However, those patients with high grade patterns (micropapillary or solid) do not have a good prognosis, even if they have been diagnosed with stage I lung adenocarcinoma. A new modified grading system has been introduced and this study aimed to identify the prognostic role of the new grading system in patients with stage IA lung adenocarcinoma.

METHODS

Patients with pathological stage IA lung adenocarcinoma, according to the eighth TNM classification who underwent curative resection, were reviewed. The pathological data of stage IA adenocarcinoma was reviewed 1 (grade 1: lepidic predominant with no or less than 20% of high grade patterns, grade 2: acinar or papillary predominant with no or less than 20% of high grade patterns, grade 3: any tumor with 20% or more of high grade patterns). Prognostic factors were analyzed for disease-free interval (DFI) and overall survival (OS) using Cox proportional models.

RESULTS

The medical records of 429 patients with stage IA lung adenocarcinoma were reviewed. DFI (p < 0.001) and OS (p < 0.001) were significantly lower in patients diagnosed with grade 3 compared with grade 1 and grade 2. Multivariate analysis showed that smoking (p = 0.013), value of SUVmax (p = 0.005), lymphovascular invasion (p = 0.004) and grade 3 (p = 0.008) were significant prognostic factors for DFI.

CONCLUSIONS

The proportion of high grade patterns showed a different prognosis, even if curative resection had been performed for stage IA adenocarcinoma. This new grading system is more simple and useful in the prediction of a prognosis in patients with stage IA lung adenocarcinoma.

Prognostic impact according to the proportion of the lepidic subtype in stage IA acinar-predominant lung adenocarcinoma

Background

Adenocarcinoma is the most common type of lung cancer and most adenocarcinomas have heterogeneous subtypes. Acinar‐predominant adenocarcinoma is the most common. This study aimed to identify the prognostic impact of other mixed histological subtypes in acinar‐predominant lung adenocarcinoma.

Methods

The medical records of patients with pathological stage IA acinar‐predominant lung adenocarcinoma between January 2010 and April 2016 were reviewed. The patients were divided into two groups according to the proportion of the lepidic subtype, with a cutoff value of 20%, and prognostic factors were analyzed.

Results

A total of 215 patients with stage IA acinar‐predominant adenocarcinoma were reviewed. The 20% or more lepidic subtype group had a low value of SUVmax (p = 0.001), good differentiation (p < 0.001) and a low incidence of the solid histological subtype (p = 0.016). Recurrence was significantly lower in the 20% or more lepidic subtype group (p = 0.008). The disease‐free survival (p = 0.007) and overall survival (p = 0.046) were significantly different between the two groups. Multivariate analysis showed that lymphovascular invasion (p = 0.006) and no or less than 20% lepidic subtype (p = 0.036) were significant prognostic factors for disease‐free survival.

Conclusions

The lepidic proportion may be useful to predict recurrence in acinar‐predominant stage IA lung adenocarcinoma.

Micropapillary Predominance Is a Risk Factor for Brain Metastasis in Resected Lung Adenocarcinoma

BACKGROUND

Histologic subtyping offers some prognostic value in lung adenocarcinoma. We thus hypothesized that histologic subtypes may be useful for risk stratification of brain metastasis (BM). In this study, we aimed to investigate the impact of histologic subtypes on the risk for BM in patients with resected lung adenocarcinoma.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

Of 1099 consecutive patients who had undergone curative-intent surgery (2000-2014), 448 patients who had undergone complete resection for lung adenocarcinoma were included in this study. Correlated clinical variables and BM-free survival were analyzed.

RESULTS

Micropapillary predominance was significantly associated with higher risk of BM after complete resection in univariate analyses (P < .001). In addition, multivariate analyses showed that micropapillary predominance was an independent risk factor for BM (hazard ratio = 2.727; 95% confidence interval, 1.260-5.900; P = .011), along with younger age and advanced pathologic stage. Unlike the other subtypes, an increase in the percentage of the micropapillary subtype was positively correlated with an increase in BM frequency. Patients with micropapillary adenocarcinoma showed significantly poorer brain metastasis-free survival compared with those with non-micropapillary adenocarcinoma (3 years, 78.2% vs. 95.6%; 5 years, 67.3% vs. 94.3%; P < .001).

CONCLUSION

The current study demonstrated a significant correlation between micropapillary subtype and higher risk of BM in patients with resected lung adenocarcinoma. This routine histologic evaluation of resected adenocarcinoma may provide useful information for the clinician when considering postoperative management in patients with lung adenocarcinoma. Histologic subtyping offer some prognostic value in lung adenocarcinoma. Because brain metastasis is critical and often refractory to systemic chemotherapy, early detection is clinically important to achieve effective local treatment. We retrospectively analyzed the association between histologic subtypes and occurrence of brain metastasis and found a significant association between micropapillary predominance and higher risk for brain metastasis. Our findings may be relevant when considering postoperative management.

WNT/β-catenin pathway activation via Wnt1 overexpression and Axin1 downregulation correlates with cadherin-catenin complex disruption and increased lymph node involvement in micropapillary-predominant lung adenocarcinoma

Background

Micropapillary-predominant adenocarcinoma (MPA) of the lung is associated with extensive lymph node involvement and rapid terminal metastasis. However, this subtype has been recognized for only a few years, and there have been few studies of the molecular mechanisms associated with its highly invasive behaviors.

Methods

The present study utilized immunohistochemical staining of surgically resected tissue blocks of MPA and lepidic-predominant lung adenocarcinoma to quantify the expression of specific biological markers in the WNT/β-catenin pathway and evaluate their influence on the lymph nodes invasion of these two types of lung adenocarcinomas.

Results

Our findings revealed that disruption of the cell membrane cadherin-catenin complex, which weakens the tumor cell adherence of MPA, was caused by the dissociation of β-catenin from the cadherin-catenin complex and the subsequent accumulation of β-catenin in the cytoplasm. This caused abnormal activation of the WNT/β-catenin pathway. We also found that Wnt-1-specific overexpression and Axin1 inhibition in MPA could explain the redistribution and cytoplasmic retention of β-catenin. Collectively, these findings suggest that an abnormality in the WNT/β-catenin pathway could enhance the invasiveness of MPA through the overexpression of Wnt-1 and downregulation of Axin1 molecules.

Conclusions

Our data support the need for further research regarding the WNT/β-catenin pathway and the need to develop novel targeted therapies for restoration of tumor cell adherence and improvement of the prognosis of MPA.

Skip N2 Metastasis in Pulmonary Adenocarcinoma: Good Prognosis Similar to N1 Disease

INTRODUCTION

The prognostic effect and mechanism of skip N2 lung cancer remain unclear. Our study aimed to elucidate the influence of skip N2 on overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) compared with N1 and non-skip N2 in patients with lung adenocarcinoma.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

Patients with lung adenocarcinoma and lymph node involvement between May 2011 and December 2015 were retrospectively analyzed. The outcomes of skip N2 patients were compared with N1 and non-skip N2 patients. Prognosis was further investigated according to the N status in different adenocarcinoma subtypes. Univariate and multivariate analyses were carried out to define independent risk factors for OS and DFS.

RESULTS

A total of 456 patients with lung adenocarcinoma, 169 with N1 disease, 81 with skip N2 disease, and 206 with non-skip N2 disease, were enrolled in this study. All tumors were invasive adenocarcinoma, and the predominant subtypes were acinar in 252, papillary in 42, solid in 119, micropapillary in 20, and invasive mucinous adenocarcinoma in 23 patients. The DFS and OS of N1 and skip N2 diseases were similar and significantly better than those of patients with non-skip N2 disease. The prognosis according to lymph node status was significantly different in acinar-predominant subtypes in terms of both OS and DFS.

CONCLUSIONS

Skip N2 disease has a similar prognosis to N1 disease and is significantly better than that of non-skip N2 disease in relation to OS and DFS. Skip N2 has a prognostic advantage in patients with the acinar-predominant subtype.

The Characteristics and Nomogram for Primary Lung Papillary Adenocarcinoma

Background

Primary pulmonary papillary adenocarcinoma (PA) is a specific and rare subtype of invasive pulmonary adenocarcinoma (ADC). The knowledge concerning the clinicopathologic features and prognosis of patients with primary pulmonary PA has not been clarified because of its rarity.

Methods

The clinical data of a total of 3391 patients with primary pulmonary PA were retrospectively analyzed to confirm their clinical characteristics and factors influencing prognosis and were in comparison with 3236 patients with non- PA pulmonary adenocarcinoma. All patients were histologically diagnosed between 1988 and 2015 in The Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database. A nomogram with satisfactory predictive performance was established to visually predict long-term survival of these patients.

Results and conclusion

Collectively, primary pulmonary PA is a rare pathological cancer and its prognosis is analogous to that of non-PA pulmonary adenocarcinoma. Older age, larger lesions, distant metastases, lymph node invasion, and poor pathological differentiation are correlative with unacceptable prognosis. Surgical intervention is conducive to reaping favorable prognosis. Unfortunately, radiotherapy or chemotherapy results of no significant effects on patient survival. In our study, a nomogram with prognostic function is formulated to confer individual prediction of overall survival (OS).

Minor components of micropapillary and solid subtypes in lung invasive adenocarcinoma (≤ 3 cm): PET/CT findings and correlations with lymph node metastasis

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the PET/CT findings in lung invasive adenocarcinoma with minor components of micropapillary or solid contents and its association with lymph node metastasis.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A total of 506 lung invasive adenocarcinoma (≤ 3 cm) patients who underwent a PET/CT examination and resection surgery were included. According to the proportion of solid/micropapillary components, the patients were classified into three groups: solid/micropapillary-negative (SMPN) (n = 258), solid/micropapillary-minor (SMPM; > 5% not predominant) (n = 158) and solid/micropapillary-predominant (SMPP; > 5% most dominant) (n = 90). The patients' PET/CT findings, including SUVmax, MTV, TLG and CT characteristics, and other clinical factors were compared by one-way ANOVA test. Logistic regression analysis was done to identify the most predictive findings for lymph node metastasis.

RESULTS

The value of SUVmax, MTV, TLG and tumor size was highest in SMPP group, followed by SMPM and SMPN group (P < 0.001).The areas under the curve for SUVmax, MTV and TLG for node metastasis were 0.822, 0.843 and 0.835, respectively. Univariate analysis found that the SMPP and SMPM group had more lymph node metastasis than the SMPN group (P < 0.001). Furthermore, the lymph node metastasis group had higher CEA, SUVmax, MTV, TLG, tumor size and more pleural invasion (P < 0.001). Logistic regression analysis found that SMPP pathological type, SMPM pathological type, higher CEA and male patients were risk factors for lymph node metastasis (P < 0.01).

CONCLUSIONS

Lung invasive adenocarcinoma with micropapillary or solid contents had higher SUVmax, MTV, TLG and tumor size and was associated with lymph node metastasis, even if they were not predominant.

Solid predominant subtype in lung adenocarcinoma is related to poor prognosis after surgical resection: A systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND

Recent studies have indicated that solid predominant (SP) subtype of lung adenocarcinoma (LADC) may be associated with early recurrence and worse prognosis. Hence, a systematic review and meta-analysis were performed to evaluate the association between LADC subtype and survival.

METHODS

The MEDLINE, SCOPUS, Web of Science and Cochrane Libraries were reviewed for eligible studies in December 2017. Studies were included if they compared outcomes of patients with and without SP subtype in resection specimens of LADC patients after surgical treatment by using multivariate Cox regression analysis. A meta-analysis for overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) was performed. The hazard ratios (HR) or odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) from each study were used to calculate pooled HRs. Statistical analyses were performed using Review Manager 5.3.

RESULTS

In total, 14 eligible studies including 12,137 LADC patients were identified, which assessed the impact of SP subtype on OS and DFS in patients treated with pulmonary resection. SP subtype was reported in 1246 (10.2%) patients and was associated with significantly worse OS (pooled HR, 1.51; 1.29-1.75) and DFS (pooled HR, 1.26; 1.14-1.40).

CONCLUSIONS

SP subtype is associated with significantly worse OS and DFS in patients with LADC after pulmonary resection. These data provide evidence for the integration of the distinct histological LADC subtyping into prognostic tools and guidelines for adjuvant treatment after complete surgical resection.