Unfavorable prognosis of patients with non-small cell lung carcinoma associated with HLA-A2

Background: HLA class I molecules present antigenic peptides to cytotoxic T lymphocytes and, thus, play an important role in immune surveillance. Sinc e 1970s there have been many reports of an increased frequency of one or mo re HLA haplotype in association with autoimmune disease, and malignancy. We studied types of HLA class I antigens in 204 resected non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) patients and also examined its correlation with clinicopa thologic features and prognosis, Method: serological typing for HLA class I antigens was performed using a microcytotoxicity test. The disease-free su rvival curves were calculated by the Kaplan-Meier method and then compared using the Logrank test. Multivariate analysis was carried out by Cox's prop ortional hazard method. Results: the difference in disease-free survival ti me between the HLA-A2 present group and A2 absent group was significant (P = 0.040). The 3-year disease-free survival rate of all patients was 44% in HLA-A2 present group and 66% in A2 absent group. When a comparison was made within the group with stage I, expression of HLA-A2 was the only independe nt factor that affected survival time by multivariate analysis (P = 0.0457) . Conclusions: expression of HLA-A2 was considered as one of the unfavorabl e prognostic factors in NSCLC patients. Our results suggested expression of HLA-A2 in NSCLC patients was one of the mechanisms of escape from immune s urveillance. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.