Prognostic Significance of Pigment Epithelium-Derived Factor Expression in Patients with Non-Small-Cell-Lung Cancer

The aims of this study were to examine prognostic significance of pigment epithelium-derived factor (PEDF) in patients with stage IA-IIIB non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Using immunohistochemistry and multivariate analysis, we set out to investigate whether PEDF expression could provide prognostic information in NSCLC in a cohort of 69 patients who had undergone radical resection for NSCLC. The correlation between PEDF and the clinical pathological features of stage I-III NSCLC after radical surgery were analyzed as well as influence on long term survival. No correlation between PEDF intensity, PEDF area or PEDF area index and clinic opathologic parameters was seen. PEDF values showed a slight correlation to the tumor stage. There was a significant negative correlation (T = -0.288, p = 0.002) between pathologic T-stage and median PEDF area and vice versa a positive correlation (T = 0.227, p = 0.016) with median PEDF intensity. We could not detect any correlation between PEDF and long term survival. For PEDF analysis, there was only a slight correlation between expression and T-stage of the tumor.