Clinical potential of sputum hyaluronan measurement in the diagnosis and prognosis of patients with NSCLC

Hyaluronan (HA) is the mainly component of extracelular matrix and shows promise for detecting cancerous change in pleural effusion and urine. Because cell-extracellular matrix interactions participate in several steps required for tumor cell invasion and formation of metastases, a group of glycosaminoglycans as hyaluronan has been targeted as a potentially useful tumor marker.Sputum can be readily and easily collected from almost any individual and could function as in non-invasive lung cancer screening strategies.The aim of this study is to determine HA levels in the sputum of patient with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) compared with that observed in healthy individuals and in patients diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) .HA was examined in sputum samples of 64 NSCLC, 14 COPD patients and 18 healthy controls. We observed significantly higher concentration of HA in the sputum of NSCLC patients when compared with healthy individuals (median: 29,9 ng/µg x 14,1 ng/µg; p Median HA concentration in COPD patients was 20,1 ng/µg and also significantly lower than that observed in NSCLC patients (p The results hereby presented suggest a promising role of HA concentration determination in the sputum as a tool to differentiate NSCLC patients from healthy individuals, as well as a predictor of therapeutic response.