LOH at the APC/MCC gene (5Q21) is frequent in early stages of non-small cell lung cancer

Lung cancer is the leading cause of death in both women and men in the Unit ed States and many European countries. Molecular cytogenetic and LOH analys es of non-small cell lung cancer have shown somatic genetic alterations in a variety of chromosomes, such as 1p, 3p, 5q, 8p, 9p, 11p, 11q and 17p. All elic deletions of the known tumor suppressor gene APC at 5q21 are frequentl y observed in advanced stages of lung cancer and have been correlated with poor prognosis in previous reports. We investigated 33 cases of NSCL for LO H at 5q21: 22 squamous cell and 11 adenocarcinomas. Normal and tumor cells were microdissected from paraffin embedded tissues and PCR amplification wa s performed utilising the specific markers D5S299 and D5S346 at 5q21 and PY GM at 11q13, respectively. Clinicopathological data, survival and recurrenc e rates were obtained in all cases. We detected LOH at 5q21 in 4/9 (44%) in formative adenocarcinomas and in 13/16 (81%) informative SCC. LOH was frequ ent in early stages (12/15 stage I cases) and did not correlate with recurr ence or poor survival. Our results show that LOH at 5q21 is more frequent i n squamous cell carcinomas than in adenocarcinomas, is frequent in early st ages of the disease, and does not have prognostic significance.