Ohta Y, Nozaki Z, Nozawa H, Kamesui T, Tsunezuka Y, Oda M, Watanabe G
Department of Surgery I, Kanazawa University School of Medicine, Kanazawa 920-8641, Japan.
Jpn J Cancer Res. 2001 Mar;92(3):361-6. doi: 10.1111/j.1349-7006.2001.tb01103.x.
We assessed the association of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and nm23 expression with occult micrometastasis in lung cancer. As destination sites for micrometastasis, we scrutinized lymph node (LN) and bone marrow (BM) specimens. For LN, 122 stage I patients who had received curative operations were studied. As regards BM, 203 patients in stage I - IV who underwent operations were registered. Immunohistochemical anti-cytokeratin staining was used to detect microdissemination of cancer cells. The VEGF and the nm23 expression at the primary sites were immunohistochemically studied in 285 cases in total. The percentages of the patients with microdissemination were 28.7% for LN and 42.4% for BM. The outcome for the patients with LN or BM microdissemination was significantly worse than that for patients without it. The increased VEGF and the decreased nm23 expression within primary tumors were significantly associated with LN and BM microdissemination. The results indicate possible value of using these biological markers to predict the risk of systemic micrometastasis in non-small cell lung cancer.
我们评估了血管内皮生长因子（VEGF）和nm23表达与肺癌隐匿性微转移的相关性。作为微转移的靶位点，我们仔细检查了淋巴结（LN）和骨髓（BM）标本。对于LN，研究了122例接受根治性手术的I期患者。对于BM，登记了203例接受手术的I - IV期患者。采用免疫组化抗细胞角蛋白染色检测癌细胞的微播散。共对285例原发部位的VEGF和nm23表达进行了免疫组化研究。LN微播散患者的比例为28.7%，BM微播散患者的比例为42.4%。LN或BM微播散患者的预后明显差于无微播散患者。原发肿瘤内VEGF升高和nm23表达降低与LN和BM微播散显著相关。结果表明，使用这些生物标志物预测非小细胞肺癌全身微转移风险可能具有价值。
