Abstract 3194: Thymidine Kinase 1 staining aids in lung cancer prognosis

Lung cancer kills more patients than breast, colon, prostate, melanoma, and kidney cancers combined. One way to improve the high lung cancer mortality rate is through early detection and better prognosis. There have been attempts to establish spiral CT scan imaging protocols or early detection assays to improve the diagnosis of lung cancer. Although these detection methods show merit, they are often costly, and are only useful for a subset of the potential lung cancer population such as high-risk smokers. One biomarker that shows promise is Thymidine Kinase 1 (TK1). Recently, it has been demonstrated that TK1 has diagnostic potential in both small cell and non-small cell lung cancer. Therefore, the present study was conducted to elucidate whether TK1 could be used in early detection and lung cancer prognosis. Five tissue microarrays (TMA) including a lung carcinoma screen, lung adenocarcinoma grade III, large cell carcinoma, small cell carcinoma, and one normal lung TMA consisting of 376 lung cancer tissue cores from 172 patients and 63 control lung tissue cores from 22 normal individuals, were stained with a TK1 monoclonal antibody produced by our lab. Mesothelioma and some of the lung cancers including squamous cell, small cell, adenosquamous cell, undifferentiated, adenocarcinoma, and bronchioloalveolar carcinoma stained positive for TK1. Papillary carcinoma, sarcoma, neuroendrocrine carcinoma, and undifferentiated large cell carcinoma showed considerably less TK1 staining. Normal and inflammatory lung tissue showed zero to minimal staining which was significantly different from positively stained lung cancer tissue. There are various increasing grades of squamous cell carcinoma patients from grade I, I-II, II, II-III and III. There was a definitive increase in TK1 staining as the grade of the lung tumor increase. A similar pattern was found with adenocarcinoma tissue grade II, II-III, and III; the more progressive the tumor, the more intense the TK1 staining. This preliminary data supports further investigation of TK1 as a marker for early detection and prognosis of numerous lung cancer subtypes. Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 102nd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2011 Apr 2-6; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2011;71(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 3194. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2011-3194