title: Clinical significance of cancer/testis antigens expression in patients with non-small cell lung cancer.
abstract: Cancer/testis antigens (CT antigens) are thought to be suitable targets for antigen-specific immunotherapy, because of the cancer-specific expression except for the testis among various normal tissues and no-expression of HLA class I in the testis. In the present study, the expressions of CT antigens (MAGE-A3, MAGE-A4, NY-ESO-1 and KK-LC-1) in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) were analyzed by RT-PCR. The subjects were 239 patients with NSCLC who underwent surgery from 2001 to 2005 in our department. The expression rates of MAGE-A3, MAGE-A4, NY-ESO-1 and KK-LC-1 were 23.8%, 20.1%, 10.5% and 32.6% in patients with NSCLC, respectively. MAGE-A4 was expressed more frequently in male (25.3%) than in female (10.6%) (p<0.01). The positive proportion of MAGE-A4 was higher in stages II-IV (30.6%) than in stage I (12.8%) (p<0.01). Both of MAGE-A3 and MAGE-A4 were expressed more frequently in squamous cell carcinoma than in adenocarcinoma (p<0.01). Such tendency was not observed among NY-ESO-1 and KK-LC-1 expression. KK-LC-1 was expressed in 32.1% of patients with adenocarcinoma and in 36.5% of patients with squamous cell carcinoma. Patients with positive MAGE-A4 expression showed significantly poorer overall survival than those without MAGE-A4 expression (p=0.013), and such effect on survival was also observed, when the analysis was limited to patients at stage I (p=0.0037). Expression of MAGE-A3, NY-ESO-1 or KK-LC-1 did not affect survival of patients with NSCLC significantly, however, expression of at least one of such CT antigens negatively affect survival of patients with NSCLC (p=0.045).
authors: Second Department of Surgery, School of Medicine, University of Occupational and Environmental Health, Kitakyushu, Japan.
authors: Yoshiki
authors: Y
authors: Shigematsu
authors: Takeshi
authors: T
authors: Hanagiri
authors: Hironobu
authors: H
authors: Shiota
authors: Koji
authors: K
authors: Kuroda
authors: Tetsuro
authors: T
authors: Baba
authors: Makiko
authors: M
authors: Mizukami
authors: Tetsuya
authors: T
authors: So
authors: Yoshinobu
authors: Y
authors: Ichiki
authors: Manabu
authors: M
authors: Yasuda
authors: Tomoko
authors: T
authors: So
authors: Mitsuhiro
authors: M
authors: Takenoyama
authors: Kosei
authors: K
authors: Yasumoto
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000951:Antigens, Neoplasm / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D002289:Carcinoma, Non-Small-Cell Lung / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000378:metabolism / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology; D018450:Disease Progression; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000378:metabolism / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D011379:Prognosis; D012737:Sex Factors; D016019:Survival Analysis; D013737:Testis / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D000951:Antigens, Neoplasm