Studies on Clinicopathological Features of Lung Cancer Patients with K-<i>ras</i>/p53 Gene Alterations: Comparison between Younger and Older Groups

Abstract

In order to define the roles of the K-ras and p53 genes in the development of lung cancer, especially in young adults, we compared the clinicopathological features of the patients between younger ( ≤ 45 years, n = 47) and older ( > 55 years, n = 50) groups. The gene alterations were examined by the polymerase chain reaction-single strand conformation polymorphism (PCR-SSCP) method. The K-ras gene alterations were detected only in adenocarcinomas, and the p53 gene alterations in all histologic types of lung cancer. There were no significant differences in the frequency of both K-ras and p53 gene alterations between the younger and older groups (9 vs. 11%, 36 vs. 32%). In the younger group, but not in the older one, the percentage for smokers was significantly higher in the p53 gene alteration-positive group than for the negative group (65 vs. 30%). As to the prognosis, there were no significant differences between the p53 gene alteration-positive and -negative cases in both the younger and older groups as well as in all subjects, while a tendency of poorer prognosis was observed in K-ras gene alteration-positive cases than for the -negative ones with adenocarcinomas. These results suggest that (1) the K-ras and p53 gene alterations would have no special roles in terms of the lung carcinogenesis in young adults; (2) a positive relationship between smoking and p53 gene alteration would exist in young adults with lung cancer, and (3) K-ras gene alteration would become a prognostic factor in lung cancer.

Very Young Patient with Peculiar Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the Lung.

“…Expression of CD34antigen may reflect immaturity or multipotent differentiatation even in solid tumors as it does in hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells. A positive relationship between smoking and p53 gene alteration exists in young adults with lung cancer (17). In the present case, tumor cells were positive for mutant p53 protein.…”

The role of RAS oncogene in survival of patients with lung cancer: a systematic review of the literature with meta-analysis

“…In total, 53 publications, published between 1990 and 2003, were found eligible for the systematic review (Rodenhuis et al, 1988(Rodenhuis et al, , 1997Slebos et al, 1990;Mitsudomi et al, 1991;Miyamoto et al, 1991;Harada et al, 1992;Sugio et al, 1992;Rosell et al, 1993Rosell et al, , 1995bRosell et al, , 1996Rosell et al, , 1997Volm et al, 1993Volm et al, , 2002Westra et al, 1993;Kern et al, 1994;Li et al, 1994;Silini et al, 1994;Fujino et al, 1995;Kashii et al, 1995;Keohavong et al, 1996Keohavong et al, , 1997Cho et al, 1997;Dosaka-Akita et al, 1997;Fukuyama et al, 1997;Komiya et al, 1997;Pifarré et al, 1997;Siegfried et al, 1997;Visscher et al, 1997;De Gregorio et al, 1998;Greatens et al, 1998;Huang et al, 1998;Kim et al, 1998;Kwiatkowski et al, 1998;Nemunaitis et al, 1998;Wang et al, 1998;Dingemans et al, 1999;Fu et al, 1999;Graziano et al, 1999;Miyake et al, 1999;Nelson et al, 1999;Hommura et al, 2000;…”

“…The reasons for noninclusion of a study into the meta-analysis were the lack of available survival results to calculate HR in 13 (Volm et al, 1993;Westra et al, 1993;Li et al, 1994;Kashii et al, 1995;Pifarré et al, 1997;Visscher et al, 1997;De Gregorio et al, 1998;Greatens et al, 1998;Fu et al, 1999;Miyake et al, 1999;Schneider et al, 2000;Andjelic et al, 2001;Broermann et al, 2002) and the lack of repartition of tumours according to RAS mutation/ expression in 1 (Ahrendt et al, 2002).…”

p53 and angiogenesis in non-small-cell lung cancer

“…There are in fact several studies that fail to evidence any statistical association between p53 alterations and poor prognosis in NSCLC (McLaren et al, 1992;Kashii et al, 1995;Kwa et al, 1996;Nishio et al, 1996) and others that find an association between p53 alterations and a favourable behaviour. However, several other studies, which evaluated both p53 mutations and p53 nuclear overexpression, have underlined a strong statistical association between p53 alterations and poor prognosis in this type of cancer (Quinlan et al, 1992;Horio et al, 1993;Mitsudomi et al, 1993;Fontanini et al, 1995a;Harpole et al, 1995;Dalquen et al, 1996;Irie et al, 1996; Dosaka-Akita et al, 1997; Fontanini et al, 1997, Fukuyama et al, 1997, stimulating further investigation in this field.…”