Author:
Krismann M,Todt B,Schröder J,Gareis D,Müller K M,Seeber S,Schütte J
Abstract
PURPOSE Sensitive detection of systemic tumor dissemination in lung cancer patients is important for selection of appropriate treatment modalities. Based on recent promising data that showed reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) analyses for cytokeratin 19 (CK-19) expression in peripheral-blood or bone marrow samples to be a rapid and highly sensitive method for detection of hematogenous tumor dissemination in patients with breast and prostate cancer, we evaluated the specificity of this assay system in lung cancer patients and a large number of healthy controls. PATIENTS AND METHODS We examined CK-19 mRNA expression by RT-PCR in 17 lung cancer cell lines and in peripheral-blood samples of 50 lung tumor patients and 65 healthy controls. RESULTS Expression of CK-19 mRNA was observed in all lung cancer cell lines and in 50% of peripheral-blood samples from lung tumor patients. However, under the experimental conditions analyzed, at least 20% of the control samples were positive for CK-19 mRNA expression. CONCLUSION Contrary to prior reports, RT-PCR may detect non-tissue-specific constitutive low-level (illegitimate) expression of CK-19 mRNA in peripheral-blood mononuclear (PBMN) cells in a significant number of healthy controls. This finding may not only hamper the use of this assay system in lung cancer patients, but also questions its proposed applicability in patients with other epithelial tumors such as breast and prostate cancer.
Publisher
American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO)
Cited by
171 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献