Study of the Peripheral Blood CD44 Expression in the Patients with Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

Abstract

Previous study has demonstrated that the peripheral blood CD44 expression level is related with the clinical stage and lymph node metastasis of lung cancer. The present comment was to investigate the relationship between the peripheral blood CD44 expression level and clinic pathological change in 50 patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) by flow cytometry method. The results showed that 1) the peripheral blood CD44 expression level in the NSCLC group was higher than that in the benign group (467 ± 15) or the normal group (448 ± 15); 2) operation decreased the peripheral blood CD44 expression level in the NSCLC group (533 ± 10 vs. 324 ± 11); 3) it also showed same results in NSCLC patients with and without lymph node metastasis (559 ± 12 vs. 477 ± 15) or before and after chemotherapy (550 ± 13 vs. 372 ± 10); 4) there were significant differences in the peripheral blood CD44 expression level in non-small cell lung cancer patients of the clinical stage I, II, III and IV (474 ± 14, 526 ± 12, 528 ± 16 and 599 ± 20); And the peripheral blood CD44 expression level was not associated with the clinical pathology parameter including the patient age, gender and tumor size. The data suggested that the peripheral blood CD44 expression level was related with the NSCLC progress, lymphatic metastasis and clinical treatment, and the peripheral blood CD44 expression level as the clinical regular examination should evaluate the progress, lymphatic metastasis and clinical treatment for the patients with NSCLC.