BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to investigate the expression level of maspin mRNA in pulmonary adenocarcinoma and to clarify its clinical significance in prediction of prognosis.

MATERIAL AND METHODS: RNA was extracted from formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tumor tissue blocks of 30 pairs of pulmonary adenocarcinoma (AC) tissues and adjacent noncancerous tissues (ANT) and in another 81 AC tissues. Expression of maspin mRNA was tested by quantitative reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) and the potential relationship between maspin mRNA expression and clinic pathological features of AC patients was analyzed.

RESULTS: The expression of maspin mRNA was upregulated in AC samples compared with the ANT (p<0.001). Patients at advanced clinical stage (III) and patients with lymphatic metastasis showed higher maspin mRNA expression level than those in early-stage patients (I and II) (p=0.038) or with non-lymphatic metastasis (p=0.034). The Kaplan-Meier survival curves indicated that disease-free survival (DFS) was significantly worse in high maspin mRNA expression AC patients (p=0.007). Furthermore, multivariate analysis revealed that the expression of maspin mRNA was an independent prognostic marker for AC (p=0.040).

CONCLUSIONS: Our study reveals that maspin mRNA was significantly up-regulated in tissues of AC patients. Maspin mRNA may be useful as a new marker of prognosis in AC.

Keywords: Adenocarcinoma - therapy, Disease Progression, Disease-Free Survival, Gene Expression Profiling, Lung Neoplasms - therapy, RNA, Messenger - metabolism, Serine Proteinase Inhibitors - chemistry, Serpins - metabolism