Interleukin-8 messenger ribonucleic acid expression correlates with tumor progression, tumor angiogenesis, patient survival, and timing of relapse innon-small-cell lung cancer

Tumor-associated angiogenesis is important for tumor growth and metastasis. Interleukin (IL)-8 was recently reported to be an important angiogenic fac tor both in vitro and in vivo. In this study we evaluated, for the first ti me, IL-8 messenger RNA (mRNA) expression in non-small-cell lung cancer (NSC LC), using real-time quantitative reverse-transcription-polymerase chain re action, and correlated IL-8 mRNA expression in tumor and nontumor lung samp les from 58 patients with NSCLC (29 with squamous cell carcinoma and 29 wit h adenocarcinoma, of whom 20 had Stage I, 10 had Stage II, and 28 had Stage III disease) with these patients' clinicopathologic characteristics, angio genesis, and outcome. IL-8 protein expression and tumor microvessel count ( MC) were assessed immunohistochemically. IL-8 mRNA expression was significa ntly greater in tumor tissue; high expression was highly associated with tu mor in advanced stages (p = 0.03), distant lymph node metastasis (p = 0.02) , high tumor MC (> 123) (p = 0.00003), short survival (< 26 mo) (p < 0.0000 1), and early relapse (< 16 mo) (p < 0.00001). Tumor MC correlated strongly with IL-8 mRNA expression (r = 0.56, p < 0.001). Multivariate analysis sho wed IL-8 mRNA expression and intratumor MC to be the most important predict ors of patient survival and relapse. Thus, in NSCLC, IL-8 mRNA expression i s strongly associated with tumor progression, tumor angiogenesis, survival, and time to relapse, suggesting its use as a prognostic indicator.