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THURSDAY, Aug. 14, 2003 (HealthDayNews) -- A protein profile that predicts the prognosis for people with lung cancer has been identified by Vanderbilt University Medical Center researchers.
They found that a distinct pattern of expression of 15 proteins in lung cancers lets them predict whether a person with lung cancer has a good or poor prognosis, says a study in a recent issue of The Lancet.
The ability to assess an individual's cancer may prove helpful to doctors and their patients when making decisions about the most appropriate form of treatment.
For example, based on the information offered by the protein profile, they may decide on more aggressive therapy at the outset if a patient has a good prognosis. On the other hand, patients with a poor prognosis may decide to avoid cancer therapies that may extend their lives a bit but hurt their quality of remaining life.
In this study, the researchers analyzed samples from 79 lung tumors and 14 samples of normal lung tissue. Based on patterns of protein expression, the researchers were able to distinguish with 100 percent accuracy:
- Normal lung tissue from tumor tissue.
- Primary non-small cell lung cancer from normal lung cells.
- Primary non-small cell lung cancer from cancer that had spread to the lungs from other organs.
- Adenocarcinomas from squamous cell carcinomas, squamous cell carcinomas from large cell carcinomas.
The study found all patients who'd received a poor prognosis from the protein profile had died a year after diagnosis, while all patients in the good diagnosis group were still alive. Median survival -- the point at which half the patients were still alive -- was 33 months for the good prognosis group and six months for the poor prognosis group.
"If this pattern is confirmed in large studies, its prognostic power exceeds that of virtually any previously published standard molecular marker," the study authors write.
They also found the protein profile is able to predict risk that the cancer has spread to nearby lymph nodes.
More information
Here's where you can learn more about lung cancer.
