Pathogenic somatic mutations in the exonuclease domain of the replicative DNA polymerase epsilon ( POLE) define a subgroup of endometrial cancers (ECs) with ultramutation (frequently ≥ 100 mutations/Mb), characteristic mutation signature (COSMIC signature 10) 1, enhanced immune response 2, 3, and excellent clinical outcome 4, 5, 6, 7. The Journal of Pathology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland. This work provides guidance on classification of ECs with POLE mutations, facilitating implementation of POLE testing in routine clinical care. Additionally, 14 cases with non‐pathogenic POLE EDM and MMRd/MSI‐H had a 5‐year RFS of 76.2%, similar to MMRd/MSI‐H, POLE wild‐type ECs, suggesting that these should be categorised as MMRd, rather than POLE‐ultramutated ECs for prognostication. In a pooled analysis of 3361 ECs, 13 ECs with DNA mismatch repair deficiency (MMRd)/MSI‐H and a pathogenic POLE EDM had a 5‐year recurrence‐free survival (RFS) of 92.3%, comparable to previously reported POLE‐ultramutated ECs. Tumours with pathogenic POLE EDM co‐existent with MSI‐H showed genomic alterations characteristic of POLE‐ultramutated ECs. The infrequent combination of MSI‐H with POLE EDM led us to investigate the clinical significance of this association.

Only 1/23 (4%) tumours with non‐EDM showed these genomic alterations, indicating that a large majority of mutations outside the exonuclease domain are not pathogenic.

A scoring system to assess these alterations (POLE‐score) was developed based on their scores, 7/18 (39%) additional tumours with EDM were classified as POLE‐ultramutated ECs, and the six POLE mutations present in these tumours were considered pathogenic. Of these, 41 had one of five known pathogenic POLE exonuclease domain mutations (EDM) and showed characteristic genomic alterations: C>A substitution > 20%, T>G substitutions > 4%, C>G substitutions 100 mut/Mb. To address this, we examined base changes, tumour mutational burden (TMB), DNA microsatellite instability (MSI) status, POLE variant frequency, and the results from six in silico tools on 82 ECs with whole‐exome sequencing from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). However, clinical implementation of this classifier requires systematic evaluation of the pathogenicity of POLE mutations. Pathogenic somatic missense mutations within the DNA polymerase epsilon ( POLE) exonuclease domain define the important subtype of ultramutated tumours (‘ POLE‐ultramutated’) within the novel molecular classification of endometrial carcinoma (EC).

Cancer mod sims 4