Significance of CD44st gene expression in non-small cell lung carcinoma cancer

Objective To investigate the clinical significance of CD44st expression in non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC). Methods Specific primers for the CD44st gene (Gene Bank NO.FJ216964) which was found in multidrug resistance cells were designed, and reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), gene sequencing and real-time PCR were used to validate the expression of the CD44st in the tissues and cancer adjacent tissues of 83 NSCLC patients (47 cases of adenocarcinoma, 36 cases of squamous carcinoma). The clinicopathologic features were analyzed by statistical analysis method. Results The positive expressive rate of CD44st gene mRNA in NSCLC tissue was 63.9 % (53/83) and the negative expressive rate was 36.1 % (30/83), which were more higher than those of cancer adjacent tissues (0/30, 0 %) (P 0.05). The rates of two years disease progression and stable condition in the group of lower CD44st expression were 45.2 % (19/42) and 54.8 % (23/42), respectively, and the rates in the group of higher CD44st expression were 68.3 % (28/41) and 31.7 % (13/41), respectively (P<0.05). Conclusions The expression level of CD44st is closely related to pathological pattern, the lymph node metastasis and the TNM-staging in NSCLC patients, which seriously influences the prognosis of the NSCLC patients. Therefore, the detection and the therapy to this special target may be a beneficial choice for the prognostic prediction of NSCLC. Key words: CD44st; Carcinoma, non-small cell lung; Prognosis