Kazuo Hachimura

Diagnostic and Prognostic Significances of MUC5B and TTF-1 Expressions in Resected Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

To investigate the relationships between the expression of MUC5B and clinicopathological parameters, the expression of MUC5B was immunohistochemically studied. MUC5B expression was observed in 129 of 198 (65.2%) adenocarcinomas and in 4 of 49 (8.2%) squamous cell carcinomas (P < 0.00001). MUC5B expression was significantly associated with poorer differentiation (P = 0.0303), higher pathological TNM stage (p = 0.0153) and poorer prognosis of adenocarcinoma patients (P = 0.0017). Multivariable analysis with Cox proportional hazards models confirmed that MUC5B expression increased the hazard of death after adjusting for other clinicopathological factors (HR = 2.66; 95%CI, 1.26–5.61). We also immunohistochemically evaluated TTF-1 expression and found that the combination of MUC5B with TTF-1 is a useful marker for adenocarcinomas. The diagnostic accuracies of TTF-1 and MUC5B for adenocarcinoma were 83.8% and 70.4%, respectively. The accuracy increased to 94.3% when the two factors were combined. In survival analysis, the MUC5B(High)/TTF-1(−) group was significantly associated with a poorer outcome compared with the MUC5B(Low)/TTF-1(+) group (p < 0.0001). The present study suggested that the combination of MUC5B and TTF-1 expression is useful for discriminating adenocarcinomas from squamous cell carcinomas, yielding prognostic significance in patients with lung adenocarcinoma.

With a novel evaluation method comparison of 2 homogeneous assay kits for high density lipoprotein cholesterol.

BACKGROUND 2 homogeneous assay kits, Determiner L HDL-C from Kyowa Medex, Co., Ltd. (Tokyo, Japan) (KWM) and Cholestest NHDL from Daiichi Pure Chemical, Co., Ltd. (Tokyo, Japan) (DIC), for HDL-C are widely used in laboratory tests worldwide. Meanwhile, it was reported that free cholesterol (FC) in HDL is not measured with one of these kits. We devised a novel evaluation method and analyzed the 2 kits in detail. METHODS Using HPLC, the residual amounts of cholesterol in reaction mixtures were compared before and after reaction with homogeneous reagents. Healthy sera were reacted with homogeneous reagents or with heated, non-enzyme reagents from each kit. The FC and total cholesterol in each lipoprotein were continuously measured with HPLC. RESULTS With KWM, the HDL-C was measured >95%.With DIC, all FC in sera was eliminated in the first reaction, and FC in HDL was not measured. Moreover, the peak X that was assumed to be a part of HDL was separated with DIC, and the cholesterol in the peak X was not measured. CONCLUSIONS 2 HDL-C assay kits were compared using a novel evaluation method. KWM was good overall. DIC was found to have 2 problems: 1) FC in HDL was not measured, and 2) the cholesterol in peak X that was assumed to be a part of HDL was not measured.