Published online Oct 26, 2021. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v9.i30.9236
Peer-review started: May 21, 2021
First decision: June 15, 2021
Revised: June 28, 2021
Accepted: August 20, 2021
Article in press: August 20, 2021
Published online: October 26, 2021
Processing time: 152 Days and 17.2 Hours
Primary pulmonary enteric adenocarcinoma (PEAC) is a very rare subtype of invasive adenocarcinoma, and there have been no large studies on PEAC to date. Therefore, it is necessary to obtain much more information about the clinical and pathological features, diagnosis, differential diagnosis, and treatment of PEAC.
All clinical data of six patients with confirmed PEAC from 2013 to 2018 were collected, and data on diagnosis, differential diagnosis, and treatment of PEAC are discussed combined with all the associated literature. The mean age of six patients was 64.0 ± 5.6 (59-73) years old. Their clinical manifestations were heterogeneous, and during their disease course, there were no gastrointestinal symptoms. There was no evidence from colonoscopy or imaging studies to suggest digestive tract tumors or new metastases. The most commonly mutated gene was KRAS (50.0%), and the pathological features of the six cases were similar to those of colorectal cancer. CDX2 (83.3%) and CK7 (66.7%) had the highest positive rates upon immunohistochemical examination. In the associated litera
Positive results for CDX2 and CK7 play an important role in the diagnosis and differential diagnosis of PEAC, and immunotherapy or targeted therapy focused on KRAS needs to be further studied for the treatment of PEAC.
Core Tip: Primary pulmonary enteric adenocarcinoma (PEAC) is a very rare subtype of invasive adenocarcinoma, and there have been no large studies on PEAC to date. All clinical data of six patients with confirmed PEAC from 2013 to 2018 were collected in this study, and data on the diagnosis, differential diagnosis, and treatment of PEAC are discussed combined with all the associated literature. Our findings highlight that positive results for CDX2 and CK7 play an important role in the diagnosis and differential diagnosis of PEAC, and immunotherapy or targeted therapy focused on KRAS needs to be further studied for the treatment of PEAC.