Abstract
Cellular adhesion molecules might be good markers in some types of malignant tumors, thus providing useful information in diagnosis and prognosis. The objective of this study was to determine the clinical significance of the serum levels of epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EPCAM) in lung cancer patients. One hundred and thirty lung cancer patients were enrolled in this study. Serum EPCAM levels were determined by the solid-phase sandwich ELISA method. Age- and sex-matched 34 healthy controls were included in the analysis. The median age was 58 years, ranging 35–80 years. The majority of the patients had NSCLC (83.8 %) and stage IV disease (60.8 %). There was no significant difference in the serum EPCAM levels between lung cancer patients and healthy controls (p = 0.16). Moreover, known clinical variables including age of patient, gender, histology, stage of disease, and response to chemotherapy were not found to be correlated with serum EPCAM concentrations (p > 0.05). Similarly, no prognostic role was found for outcome (1-year survival rate 62 vs. 65.1 %, p = 0.89). In conclusion, serum EPCAM concentrations have no diagnostic, predictive, and prognostic roles in lung cancer patients.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Charalabopoulos K, Papalimneou V, Charalabopoulos A (2003) Adhesion molecules in lung cancer. Exp Oncol 25:16–21
Patriarca C, Macchi RM, Marschner AK, Mellstedt H (2012) Epithelial cell adhesion molecule expression (CD326) in cancer: a short review. Cancer Treat Rev 38:68–75
Went P, Vasei M, Bubendorf L, Terracciano L, Tornillo L, Riede U, Kononen J, Simon R, Sauter G, Baeuerle PA (2006) Frequent high-level expression of the immunotherapeutic target Ep-CAM in colon, stomach, prostate and lung cancers. Br J Cancer 94:128–135
Piyathilake CJ, Frost AR, Weiss H, Manne U, Heimburger DC, Grizzle WE (2000) The expression of Ep-CAM (17–1A) in squamous cell cancers of the lung. Hum Pathol 31:482–487
Kobayashi H, Minami Y, Anami Y, Kondou Y, Lijima T, Kano J, Morishita Y, Tsuta K, Hayashi S, Noguchi M (2010) Expression of the GA733 gene family and its relationship to prognosis in pulmonary adenocarcinoma. Virchows Arch 457:69–76
Pak MG, Shin DH, Lee CH, Lee MK (2012) Significance of EpCAM and TROP2 expression in nonsmall cell lung cancer. World J Surg Oncol 10:53
Kim Y, Kim HS, Cui ZY, Lee HS, Ahn JS, Park CK, Park K, Ahn MJ (2009) Clinicopathological implications of EpCAM expression in adenocarcinoma of the lung. Anticancer Res 29:1817–1822
Hase T, Sato M, Yoshida K, Girard L, Takeyama Y, Horio M, Elshazley M, Oguri T, Sekido Y, Shames DS, Gazdar AF, Minna JD, Kondo M, Hasegawa Y (2011) Pivotal role of epithelial cell adhesion molecule in the survival of lung cancer cells. Cancer Sci 101:1493–1500
Brezicka T (2005) Expression of epithelial-cell adhesion molecule (Ep-CAM) in small cell lung cancer as defined by monoclonal antibodies 17–1A and BerEP4. Acta Oncol 44:723–727
Conflict of interest
None.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Tas, F., Karabulut, S. & Duranyildiz, D. Clinical significance of serum epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EPCAM) levels in patients with lung cancer. Mol Cell Biochem 396, 307–312 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11010-014-2167-3
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11010-014-2167-3