Introduction:

the plasma concentration of epidermal growth factor may be altered in patients with non-small cell lung cancer and thrombocytopenia/thrombocytosis due to chemotherapy.

Objective:

to determine the association between platelet plasma concentration and epidermal growth factor plasma concentration in patients with non-small cell lung cancer treated with chemotherapy between March 2019 and February 2020 at Saturnino Lora Provincial Hospital.

Methods:

a cross-sectional, descriptive and observational study was conducted at Saturnino Lora Provincial Hospital, Santiago de Cuba province, Cuba, between March 2019 and February 2020. The target group comprised 54 patients diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer treated with chemotherapy. A sample of 12 patients was chosen by simple probability-random sampling: platelet plasma concentration (pre- and post-chemotherapy), epidermal growth factor plasma concentration (pre- and post-chemotherapy), and modification of epidermal growth factor plasma concentration (castration, non-castration) were measured. For data processing, the statistical T-student test and Pearson's linear correlation were applied, as well as the mean and standard deviation as summary and dispersion measures, respectively.

Results:

a linear relationship of -0.37 before chemotherapy and -0.51 after the chemotherapy was found between platelet and epidermal growth factor plasma concentrations; no statistically significant differences were found.

Conclusions:

it is concluded that the modification of the plasma concentration of epidermal growth factor has no apparent relationship with the platelet plasma modification, with possible spurious relationship, given by chemotherapy.

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