To explore the spectrum of driver mutations among lung cancer tissues from never smokers, specifically in a population where high lung cancer rates have been attributed to indoor air pollution from domestic coal use, multiplexed assays were used to detect >40 point mutations, insertions, and deletions (EGFR, KRAS, BRAF, HER2, NRAS, PIK3CA, MEK1, AKT1, and PTEN) among the lung tumors of confirmed never smoking females from Xuanwei, China [32 adenocarcinomas (ADCs), 7 squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs), 1 adenosquamous carcinoma (ADSC)].
Among 11 HPV-negative adenocarcinomas, 40.0% (2/5) endometrioid cases and 33.3% (2/6) mucinous cases were shown to be PTEN mutated, while no cases (0/21) were PTEN-mutant in the remainder (i.e. adenosquamous carcinomas and HPV-positive adenocarcinomas).