Circulating endothelial cells in the peripheral blood of advanced NSCLC patients / 中华肿瘤杂志

ABSTRACT

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To investigate the changes and clinical value of circulating endothelial cells (CEC) in the peripheral blood of advanced NSCLC patient.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Sixty-seven advanced NSCLC patients were randomly divided into either the treatment group with NP plus endostatin or control group with NP alone. Level of CEC and cytokeratin (CK) in the peripheral blood were measured by flow cytometry.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The response rate and benefit rate was 44.4%, 80.0% in the treatment group, and 27.3%, 50.0% in the control group, respectively (P = 0.176 and P = 0.012). Time to tumor progression (TTP) was 146.7 days in the treatment group and 91.1 days in the control group (P = 0.061). However, when the cut-off of TTP was defined as > 170 days, there was a significant difference between two groups (cut-off = 170, P = 0.034; cut-off = 180, P = 0.009). The number of CEC decreased by 0.29 +/- 0.47 in the treatment group and by 0.01 +/- 0.43 in the control group (P = 0.033). The correlation between CEC and CK was found to be positive either before (r = 0.381, P = 0.013) or after the treatment (r = 0.450, P = 0.004).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>Chemotherapy combined with endostatin is superior to chemotherapy alone in the treatment of NSCLC. CEC, as a biomarker, may be useful in predicting the efficacy of the combined treatment.</p>