Prognostic factors in resected non-small cell lung cancer: an immunohistochemical study of 39 cases

Abstract

Non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) is a histologically heterogeneous collection of tumours with variable clinical behaviour. Performance status, tumour stage and histological type have important prognostic implications, but the clinical outcome in an individual patient remains unpredictable. In search of other prognostic factors we studied the expression of several immunohistochemical markers in NSCLC, resected with curative intent. Tumour samples of 19 patients with a postoperative disease-free survival of at least 5 years and those of 20 patients who died of tumour recurrence within 2 years after resection were selected for this study. The populations were matched for age, sex and tumour stage. We investigated the expression of markers for neuroendocrine differentiation, cell adhesion and cell cycle regulation in both populations. None of the investigated immunohistochemical markers distinguished between long- and short- term survivors of resected NSCLC. In stage 1 tumours expression of embryonal NCAM was observed more often in the short survival group ( P = 0.026) and in stage 3a EGF-r expression was associated with the long survival group ( P = 0.047). However, these findings remained to be confirmed. Expression of Rb, NCAM and embryonal NCAM was not detected in adenocarcinomas, whereas T-Ag and chromogranin A immunoreactivity was absent from squamous cell carcinomas.