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Loss of blood group antigen a in non-small cell lung cancer

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Abstract

Background: Many human tumor cells display alterations in blood group antigen expression, and the loss of antigen A expression by non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in blood group A patients has recently been associated with decreased survival.

Methods: To confirm this finding, we performed a retrospective study of 62 NSCLC patients undergoing potentially curative resection between August 1987 and December 1991 who were blood group A and had paraffin-embedded primary lung cancer tissue suitable for immunohistological analysis of antigen A expression. Twenty-seven patients expressed antigen A in their tumors, whereas 35 had loss of antigen expression. Disease-free survival (DFS) curves were calculated for stage I (n=26) and IIIA (n=25) patients.

Results: The two groups of patients with or without antigen A expression did not have significantly different DFS. A proportional hazards regression analysis identified no significant difference in the DFS of stage I patients with or without antigen A, but stage IIIA patients who had preservation of antigen A had significantly shorter DFS than did those who lost antigen A (p=0.0002).

Conclusions: The loss of expression of antigen A by primary tumor cells was not a significant adverse prognostic factor in DFS in our series, and we would recommend further studies to define clearly the clinical importance of antigen A expression in pulmonary carcinoma.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. From the Department of Surgical Oncology, Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

    John L. Gwin MD & Steven M. Keller MD

  2. Department of Pathology, Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

    Andres J. P. Klein-Szanto MD, Shi-Yu Zhang MD & Steven M. Keller MD

  3. Department of Biostatistics, Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

    Andre Rogatko PhD

Authors
  1. John L. Gwin MD
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  2. Andres J. P. Klein-Szanto MD
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  3. Shi-Yu Zhang MD
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  4. Pasha Agarwal MD
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  5. Andre Rogatko PhD
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  6. Steven M. Keller MD
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Gwin, J.L., Klein-Szanto, A.J.P., Zhang, SY. et al. Loss of blood group antigen a in non-small cell lung cancer. Annals of Surgical Oncology 1, 423–427 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02303816

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02303816

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