Identification of Serum Inflammatory Markers as Classifiers of Lung Cancer Mortality for Stage I Adenocarcinoma

Authors

• CL Meaney
• A Zingone
• D Brown
• Y Yu
• L Cao
• BM Ryan

Abstract

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide. Low-dose CT (LDCT) screening has resulted in increased detection of stage I lung cancer for which the current standard of care is surgery alone. However, approximately 30% of these patients will develop recurrence and therefore are in need of further treatment upon diagnosis. This study aims to explore blood-based inflammatory biomarkers to identify patients at high-risk of mortality for which additional treatment modalities can be offered at time of diagnosis. Recent work on a small panel of circulating cytokines identified elevated levels of IL-6, a pro-inflammatory cytokine, as an indicator of poor survival for lung cancer patients. To further examine the potential of inflammatory biomarkers as prognostic indicators, a broader panel of 33 markers were assessed in sera of 129 stage I lung adenocarcinoma cases selected from the National Cancer Institute-Maryland case-control study. Five analytes were significantly associated with shorter lung cancer-specific survival. To reduce levels of misclassification, a multi-marker, combined prognostic classifier was developed. Patients with high levels of IL-6, CRP and IL-17A had a significantly adverse survival compared with patients with low levels (P for trend

Scientific Focus Area: Cancer Biology

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