Primary pulmonary lymphoepithelioma-like carcinoma (LELC) is a rare tumor and often misdiagnosed as squamous carcinoma.SkiptomaincontentAdvertisementSearchallBMCarticlesSearchDownloadPDFResearchOpenAccessPublished:21November2019Primarypulmonarylymphoepithelioma-likecarcinoma:araretypeoflungcancerwithafavorableoutcomeincomparisontosquamouscarcinomaBojiangChen1,XupingChen1,PingZhou1,LanYang1,JingRen1,XiaodongYang1&WeiminLi1 RespiratoryResearchvolume 20,Article number: 262(2019)Citethisarticle3081Accesses1AltmetricMetricsdetailsAbstractBackgroundPrimarypulmonarylymphoepithelioma-likecarcinoma(LELC)isararetumorandoftenmisdiagnosedassquamouscarcinoma.Inthecurrentstudy,clinicalcharacteristicsandoutcomeofprimarypulmonaryLELCweresystematicallycomparedwithpulmonarysquamouscarcinoma.MethodsForty-twocasesofprimarypulmonaryLELCand134squamouscarcinomaswereenrolledretrospectively.Characteristicandprognosisdifferencebetweenthetwogroupswascompared,andtheindependentprognosticfactorforpulmonaryLELCwasidentifiedaswell.ResultsIncomparisontosquamouscarcinoma,pulmonaryLELCwasmorecommoninwomenwithayoungermedianageandlesssmokers.LELCseemedtobesmallerindiameteroncomputedtomography(CT)scansthansquamouscarcinoma,withscarcespiculationandvascularconvergencesigns.Epstein-Barvirus-encodedRNA(EBER)byin-situhybridizationwasdetectedin33LELCcases,amongwhom27oneswerepositiveinserumEBV-DNAexamination.LELCpatientspresentedamuchlongermedianprogression-freesurvival(PFS)thansquamouscarcinoma.PositiveserumEBV-DNA,distantlymphnodeinvasion,advancedclinicalstageandreceivingradiotherapywerecorrelatedwiththeshorterPFSinLELCpatients.However,onlypositiveserumEBV-DNAwastheindependentPFSpredictor.ConclusionPulmonaryLELClookslikedistinctfromsquamouscarcinoma.Middle-agedwomenandnonsmokersarecomparativelypredominated.CTfeaturesofpulmonaryLELCarerelativelyless-malignant.Correspondently,theprogressionofpulmonaryLELCisseeminglyfavorablethansquamouscarcinomaandthepositiveserumEBV-DNAappearstobethepredictorofPFS.BackgroundL