Clinical study on the bone marrow micrometastases in patients with non-small cell lung cancer by immunohistochemical techniques / 中国肺癌杂志

ABSTRACT

<p><b>BACKGROUND</b>To investigate the immunohistochemical detected method and the clinical incidence of the bone marrow micrometastases (BMM) in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and to analyze the sensitivity and specificity and clinical application value.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Bone marrow samples were collected from the anterior superior iliac spines or posterior superior iliac spines of 53 patients with NSCLC in clinical stage I to III and 15 patients in stage IV, and the BMM was detected by immunohistochemical techniques (IHC) using monoclonal antibodies AE1/AE3 against cytokeratin. Chi-square test was used statistically.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The IHC sensitivity could be 10⁻⁵. The BMM positive rate was 22.6% (12/53) in stage I to III and 53.3% (8/15) in stage IV, and there was a significant difference in the BMM positive rate between stage I to III and stage IV (P < 0.05). No correlation was observed between BMM and sex, age, KPS, pathology classification and cancer cell differentiation.</p><p><b>CONCLUSIONS</b>The detection of BMM by IHC is convenient, sensitive, and specific. It might be helpful to diagnose bone marrow micrometastasis in patients with NSCLC.</p>