ABSTRACT
Objective To detect Snail and Raf kinase inhibitor protein (RKIP) expressions in NSCLC (Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer) and their relationship with the pathological characteristics of tumor. Methods Immunohistochemistry was used to detect Snail and RKIP expression in 124 NSCLC samples and 67 paraneoplastic normal lung tissue samples. Snail and RKIP positive expression rates were compared upon clinicopathologic characteristics. Correlation of Snail expres-sion with RKIP expression was also analyzed. Results Positive expression rate of Snail was 79.03%in lung cancer, which is higher than that in normal lung tissue 19.40%(χ2=63.538, P＜0.01);positive expression rate of RKIP was 36.29%in lung cancer which is lower than that in normal lung tissue 77.61%(χ2=29.716,P＜0.01), Snail and RKIP expressions are corre-lated with tumor differentiation, TNM stage, lymph node metastasis and postoperative survival time ( P＜0.05, respectively) . Snail protein expression is negatively correlated with RKIP expression in NSCLC (P＜0.05). Conclusion High Snail ex-pression and the low RKIP expression might be important biological markers for invasion and metastasis of NSCLC, which might be used as important prognostic indicators in NSCLC.