The diagnostic performance of lysine(K)-specific demethylase 6B () in non-small cell lung cancer.

Accumulating evidence show that histone demethylases play important roles in various types of cancers, including non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). In the current study, we evaluated the diagnostic value of () in NSCLC. Serum expression levels of 115 NSCLC patients and 88 healthy volunteers were detected by reverse transcription quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). The relationship between and clinical characteristics was assessed by chi-square test. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was applied to evaluate diagnostic efficacy. Serum was significantly lower in NSCLC patients than that in healthy controls ( < .001). Moreover, low expression was significantly associated with the high clinical stage ( = .028) and positive lymph node metastasis ( = .031). Besides, we found that the expression of mRNA was also significantly different among healthy controls, NSCLC early stage and later stage patients ( < .05). ROC curve indicated that could serve as a diagnostic marker for NSCLC with the cut-off value of 0.955. The AUC was 0.897 with a sensitivity of 79.5% and specificity of 84.3%. Down-regulation of is significantly associated with aggressive progression of NSCLC and may be a tool of early detection of NSCLC.