BACKGROUND

Nonsmall cell lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer mortality worldwide because of distant metastasis and frequent recurrence. Only few reliable and easily accessible tumor markers have been clinically implemented to the early nonsmall cell cancer prognosis.

OBJECTIVE

The purpose of this study is to detect the expression of CUG-binding protein (CUGBP1) and assess the prognostic significance of CUGBP1 in early stage (IB) lung adenocarcinoma patients.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Using quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and immunohistochemistry (IHC) analysis, we detect the expression of CUGBP1 and assess their correlation with clinicopathological parameters by Chi-square test. Time to progression (TTP) was used as a recurrent index and was evaluated by univariate and multivariate analysis in the Cox hazard model.

RESULTS

Using PCR and IHC analyses, the expression of CUGBP1 and CUGBP1 messenger RNA (mRNA) had a close relationship with differentiation and vascular-invasion (VI). However, there were no significant differences between the CUGBP1 mRNA expression and CUGBP1 protein expression in IB lung adenocarcinoma. Using univariate and multivariate survival analyses, we found that CUGBP1 and VI were independent prognostic factors for IB stage adenocarcinoma individuals postsurgically.

CONCLUSIONS

High expression of CUGBP1 could enhance the recurrence rate of adenocarcinoma and predicts an adverse postsurgical survival of TTP. Combination of CUGBP1 and VI detecting could be considered as indication to predict prognosis of IB stage adenocarcinoma in the clinical trial.