title: Decreased maspin combined with elevated vascular endothelial growth factor C is associated with poor prognosis in non-small cell lung cancer.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  This study aimed to investigate the clinical significance of the combination of maspin and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)-C expression in the prognosis of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
  
  
  METHODS
  Immunohistochemistry was performed to assay the expression of maspin and VEGF-C in primary tumor tissues, metastatic, and non-metastatic lymph nodes in 98 NSCLC patients. Survival analysis was determined by Kaplan-Meier curves.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The positive expression rate of maspin was 26.5% (26/98) in NSCLC primary tumor tissues, significantly associated with histological type (P = 0.005) and the absence of nodal metastasis (P < 0.001). The expression of maspin in primary tumor tissues was stronger than metastatic lymph nodes of the N1 group (P = 0.048), while the metastatic lymph nodes of the N1 group had a stronger maspin expression than the N2 group (P = 0.008). In survival analysis, a positive expression of maspin of the N1 lymph node was also found to be an independent positive prognostic factor in overall survival (P = 0.003). We also found that decreased maspin combined with elevated VEGF-C is associated with a poor prognosis for disease-free survival (P = 0.019).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our results suggest that positive expression of maspin might significantly inhibit nodal metastasis in NSCLC. Decreased maspin combined with elevated VEGF-C might be associated with a poor prognosis in NSCLC.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Carcinogenesis and Translational Research (Ministry of Education), Department of Thoracic Surgery, Peking University Cancer Hospital & Institute Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Xing
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Carcinogenesis and Translational Research (Ministry of Education), Department of Respiratory Medicine, Peking University Cancer Hospital & Institute Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Carcinogenesis and Translational Research (Ministry of Education), Department of Thoracic Surgery, Peking University Cancer Hospital & Institute Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Shaolei
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Peking University Cancer Hospital & Institute Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Bin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Dong
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Carcinogenesis and Translational Research (Ministry of Education), Department of Thoracic Surgery, Peking University Cancer Hospital & Institute Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Qingfeng
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Carcinogenesis and Translational Research (Ministry of Education), Department of Thoracic Surgery, Peking University Cancer Hospital & Institute Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Shi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Carcinogenesis and Translational Research (Ministry of Education), Department of Thoracic Surgery, Peking University Cancer Hospital & Institute Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Yuanyuan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Carcinogenesis and Translational Research (Ministry of Education), Department of Thoracic Surgery, Peking University Cancer Hospital & Institute Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Jianzhi
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Carcinogenesis and Translational Research (Ministry of Education), Department of Respiratory Medicine, Peking University Cancer Hospital & Institute Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Jian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Fang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Carcinogenesis and Translational Research (Ministry of Education), Department of Thoracic Surgery, Peking University Cancer Hospital & Institute Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Nan
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: Beijing Center for Physical and Chemical Analysis Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Huijuan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Carcinogenesis and Translational Research (Ministry of Education), Department of Thoracic Surgery, Peking University Cancer Hospital & Institute Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Yue
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yang
keywords: Immunohistochemistry; NSCLC; VEGF-C; lymph node; maspin; subcellular location