Clinical and prognostic significance of signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 and mucin 1 in patients with non-small cell lung cancer following surgery

Zhi-Gang Sun; Min Zhang; Fei Yang; Wei Gao; Zhou Wang; Liang-Ming Zhu

doi:10.3892/ol.2018.7858

Clinical and prognostic significance of signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 and mucin 1 in patients with non-small cell lung cancer following surgery

Oncol Lett. 2018 Apr;15(4):4278-4288. doi: 10.3892/ol.2018.7858. Epub 2018 Jan 25.

Authors

Zhi-Gang Sun¹, Min Zhang², Fei Yang³, Wei Gao³, Zhou Wang⁴, Liang-Ming Zhu¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Thoracic Surgery, Jinan Central Hospital Affiliated to Shandong University, Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong 250013, P.R. China.
² Department of Dermatology, Jinan Central Hospital Affiliated to Shandong University, Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong 250013, P.R. China.
³ Department of Pathology, Jinan Central Hospital Affiliated to Shandong University, Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong 250013, P.R. China.
⁴ Department of Thoracic Surgery, Provincial Hospital Affiliated to Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong 250021, P.R. China.

Abstract

Signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) and mucin 1 (MUC1) are associated with development, progression and a poor prognosis in several types of cancer. The present study investigated the levels of STAT3 and MUC1 in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) following surgery. In total, 98 patients with NSCLC were enrolled into the study. STAT3, phosphorylated (p)-STAT3 and MUC1 expression in NSCLC specimens obtained from patients were investigated using immunohistochemical analysis. Enumeration results were analyzed using the χ² test or Fisher's exact probability test. Spearman's rank correlation was used to analyze correlations between STAT3, p-STAT3 and MUC1 expression. Univariate analysis was conducted using the Kaplan-Meier estimator curve method and Cox regression multivariate analysis was performed in order to determine prognostic factors. Results demonstrated that STAT3 and p-STAT3 expression was identified in 82 and 51 patients, respectively. Furthermore, the expression of MUC1 was identified in 61/98 cases (62.2%) and STAT3 expression was significantly associated with pathological tumor-node-metastasis stage (pTNM; P<0.01). p-STAT3 expression was associated with pathological type (P<0.01), pathological lymph nodes (pN; P<0.01) and pTNM (P<0.05). MUC1 expression was associated with pathological type (P<0.05), pathological tumor pT (P<0.05), pN (P<0.01) and pTNM (P<0.01). STAT3 expression was positively associated with p-STAT3 expression (P<0.05) and p-STAT3 expression was positively associated with MUC1 expression (P<0.01). Overall, the results identified that the 3-year survival rate was 56.1% and was significantly associated with the degree of differentiation (P<0.05), pT (P<0.01), pN (P<0.01), pTNM stage (P<0.01), p-STAT3 expression (P<0.01) and MUC1 expression (P<0.05). Results obtained from the Cox multivariate regression analysis demonstrated that pN and p-STAT3 expression were independent factors associated with the 3-year survival rate.

Keywords: mucin 1; non-small cell lung cancer; phosphorylated signal transducer and activator of transcription 3; signal transducer and activator of transcription 3.