Histology-dependent prognostic role of pERK and p53 protein levels in early-stage non-small cell lung cancer.

Histology-dependent prognostic role of pERK and p53 protein levels in early-stage non-small cell lung cancer. Oncotarget. 2018 Apr 13;9(28):19945-19960 Authors: Quintanal-Villalonga Á, Mediano M, Ferrer I, Meléndez R, Carranza-Carranza A, Suárez R, Carnero A, Molina-Pinelo S, Paz-Ares L Abstract Lung tumors represent a major health problem. In early stage NSCLC tumors, surgical resection is the preferred treatment, but 30-55% of patients will relapse within 5 years after surgery. Thus, the identification of prognostic biomarkers in early stage NSCLC patients, especially those which are therapeutically addressable, is crucial to enhance survival of these patients. We determined the immunohistochemistry expression of key proteins involved in tumorigenesis and oncogenic signaling, p53, EGFR, pAKT and pERK, and correlated their expression level to clinicopathological characteristics and patient outcome. We found EGFR expression is higher in the squamous cell carcinomas than in adenocarcinomas (p=0.043), and that nuclear p53 staining correlated with lower differentiated squamous tumors (p=0.034). Regarding the prognostic potential of the expression of these proteins, high pERK levels proved to be an independent prognostic factor for overall (p<0.001) and progression-free survival (p<0.001) in adenocarcinoma patients, but not in those from the squamous histology, and high p53 nuclear levels were identified as independent prognosti...
Source: Oncotarget - Category: Cancer & Oncology Tags: Oncotarget Source Type: research