Clinical significance of LUNX mRNA, CK19 mRNA, CEA mRNA expression in detecting micrometastasis from lung cancer / 中华放射肿瘤学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To evaluate the sensitivity, specificity and clinical significance of CK19 mRNA, CEA mRNA and LUNX mRNA for detecting micrometastasis by sampling the peripheral blood and regional lymph nodes of lung cancer patients. Methods Reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was used to detect LUNX mRNA,CK19 mRNA, CEA mRNA for micrometastasis by sampling the peripheral blood of 48 lung cancer patients and 44 regional lymph nodes of such patients treated by curative resection. Peripheral blood of 30 patients with pulmonary benign lesions and 10 normal healthy volunteers and lymph nodes of 6 patients with benign pulmonary diseases served as control. Results (1) LUNX mRNA, CK19 mRNA, CEA mRNA were expressed in all(35/35) lung cancer tissues. (2) In the peripheral blood from 48 lung cancer patients, 30(62.5%) were positive for LUNX mRNA, 24 (50.0% ) positive for CK19 mRNA and 32(66.7%) positive for CEA mRNA. The positive detection rates of micrometastasis in 44 lymph nodes from lung cancer patients were 36.4% (16 out of 44) for LUNX mRNA, 27.3%(12 out of 44) for CK19 mRNA and 40.9%(18 out of 44) for CEA mRNA. (3) In the 30 blood samples from patients with pulmonary benign diseases, 2 (6.7%) expressed CK19 mRNA, but none expressed LUNX mRNA or CEA mRNA. All the 3 molecular markers were negative in the 10 blood samples from healthy volunteers. In 11 lymph nodes from patients with pulmonary benign lesions, none was positive for any of the three markers.(4)In 44 regional lymph nodes from lung cancer patients,6(13.6%) were positive for metastasis by histopathological examination, with a positive rate significantly lower than that of the RT-PCR ( P