Chromosome abnormalities in non‐small cell lung cancer pleural effusions: Cytogenetic indicators of disease subgroups

Abstract

A cytogenetic study of pleural effusions (PE) containing metastatic or invasive tumor cells from 11 patients with non‐small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) (3 squamous cell carcinomas [SQC] and 8 adenocarcinomas [ADC] including 1 giant cell variant) was performed to identify non‐random chromosome abnormalities. Numerical abnormalities seen in ≥ 30% of cases included gain of chromosomes 7 and 20, and loss of chromosomes 4, 9, 10, 13, 15, 16, 18, 19, 21, and 22. The most frequent structural abnormality involved rearrangement in 1p with breakpoints clustering at 1p10‐p13. Other recurrent breakpoint regions, seen in ≥ 30% of cases, occurred in chromosome regions 3p10‐p21, 3q11‐q25, 6p11‐p25, 6q13‐q23, ..