Prognostic impact of stathmin 1 expression in patients with lung adenocarcinoma.

Abstract

Stathmin 1 is a major cytosolic phosphoprotein that regulates microtubule dynamics and is associated with malignant phenotypes in various cancers, including non-small cell lung cancer. We aimed to determine differences in overall survival and disease-free proportion in patients with lung adenocarcinoma stratified by stathmin 1 tumor expression. With the use of immunohistochemistry, stathmin 1 expression was determined in resection specimens from 303 patients with adenocarcinoma. Associations between stathmin 1 protein expression and overall and disease-free proportion were assessed (Kaplan-Meier survival curves compared with log-rank statistics). Cox proportional hazards regression determined the hazard for death stratified by stathmin 1, adjusting for clinicopathologic characteristics. During follow-up, 74 (24.4%) recurrences and 73 (24.1%) all-cause deaths were recorded. Expressed in 53.8% of adenocarcinoma cases, overall survival and disease-free proportion were significantly worse in stathmin 1-positive patients (log-rank P < .001 and P < .001, respectively). When adjusted for clinical and pathologic factors, stathmin 1 expression was an independent prognostic variable for both overall survival (hazard ratio, 2.21; 95% confidence interval, 1.28-3.80) and disease-free proportion (hazard ratio, 2.02; 95% confidence interval, 1.13-3.63) and for disease-free proportion even in the subset of patients with stage I (hazard ratio, 2.79; 95% confidence interval, 1.07-7.27). There was no significant difference between the stathmin 1-positive patients with stage IA and patients with stage IB in overall survival (P = .975) and disease-free proportion (P = .490), respectively. Stathmin 1 expression was an independent prognostic factor for adenocarcinoma, even when restricted to patients with early-stage cancer.