Rikuro Hatakenaka

Study of NCC-ST-439 in patients with lung cancer

Abstract NCC-ST-439 is a glycoprotein recognized by a monoclonal antibody (ST-439) which is obtained by using a human gastric cancer xenograph, ST-4, as an immunogen. Using a Lana Enzyme Kit from Nippon Kayaku, we measured the serum level of NCC-ST-439 in 223 patients with lung cancer, 344 patients with benign lung diseases and 97 healthy adults. When we adopted a cut-off level of 4.5 U/ml for women aged 50 years or more and for men of any age, and 7.0 U/ml for women aged less than 50, the overall positive rates were 22.0% for the lung cancer patients, 7.0% for patients with benign lung diseases and 3.1% for the healthy adults. The positive rate of the lung cancer patients was significantly higher than for patients with benign lung diseases (P According to the histological type of lung cancer, the positive rates were 34.3% for 105 patients with adenocarcinoma, 9.8% for 68 patients with squamous cell carcinoma, and 16.7% for 6 patients with large cell carcinoma. Classification of the lung cancer patients revealed positive rates for serum NCC-ST-439 of 0% for 40 Stage I patients, 8.3% in 12 Stage II patients, 12.5% in 48 Stage IIIA patients, 37.0% in 46 Stage IIIB patients, and 33.3% in 45 Stage IV patients. After we performed immunostaining for NCC-ST-439 using ST-439, positive immunoactivity was demonstrated mainly in the membrane of adenocarcinoma cells. NCC-ST-439 thus seems to be a tumor associated marker in patients with lung adenocarcinoma.