H. Satoh et al., SERUM SIALYL-LEWIS X-I ANTIGEN LEVELS IN NONSMALL CELL LUNG-CANCER - CORRELATION WITH DISTANT METASTASIS AND SURVIVAL, Clinical cancer research, 3(4), 1997, pp. 495-499
To evaluate the correlation between serum levels of sialyl Lewis X-i a
ntigen and distant metastasis and survival in patients with non-small
cell lung cancer (NSCLC), we measured the serum levels of the tumor ma
rker in 371 patients with untreated NSCLC, The sialyl Lewis X-i antige
n level was measured using a RIA kit, In patients with adenocarcinoma
or other NSCLC subtypes, there was a correlation between serum sialyl
Lewis X-i antigen and stage of the disease (P = 0.0001 and P = 0.0015,
respectively), Levels of the marker varied significantly depending on
the number of metastatic organs in adenocarcinoma (P 0.0089) and in o
ther NSCLC subtypes (P = 0.002), Univariate analysis showed that survi
val of NSCLC patients with high (more than 100 units/ml) sialyl Lewis
X-i antigen levels was significantly poorer than that of patients with
low antigen levels (P = 0.0001), Multivariate analysis using Cox's pr
oportional hazard model showed that high sialyl Lewis X-i antigen leve
ls correlated significantly with poor survival (P = 0.004), Our data s
uggest that a high serum level of sialyl Lewis X-i antigen seems to be
an indicator of the presence of metastasis and might indicate the nee
d for a careful investigation of all putative metastatic sites. The se
rum levels of sialyl Lewis X-i antigen may reflect the extension of me
tastasis and would be helpful in considering treatment options.