Ott_a_222332 10739..10747

Chengyu Chen Qun Geng Dongfeng Sun Wensi Hu Chenxi Zhong Limin Fan Xiaoming Song 1Department of Thoracic Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Shandong First Medical University, Jinan, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Ultrasound Diagnosis and Treatment, Shandong Provincial Hospital, Shandong University, Jinan, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Thoracic Surgery, Shanghai Chest Hospital, Shanghai JiaoTong University, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China Objective: To investigate the expression of tumor suppressor protein ASK1-interacting protein-1 (AIP1) in cancer tissues of patients with early-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and its correlation with tumor progression, tumor angiogenesis and prognosis. Methods: A total of 136 patients with stage I NSCLC who underwent radical resection of lung cancer in Qianfoshan Hospital of Shandong Province from January 2011 to December 2011 were enrolled. Immunohistochemistry was used to detect AIP1 protein in tumor tissues. Vascular endothelial CD34 immunohistochemical staining was used to count intratumoral microvessel density (MVD). SPSS 19.0 software was used to analyze the relationship between AIP1 protein expression and clinicopathological features, tumor angiogenesis and prognosis. Results: Low expression of AIP1 was more common in tumor tissues with high MVD, and patients with low expression of AIP1 were more likely to have tumor recurrence. Multivariate analysis showed that low expression of AIP1 had predictive value for overall survival, disease-free survival, and disease-specific survival. Conclusion: Downregulation of AIP1 protein expression is associated with lung cancer progression, tumor angiogenesis and poor prognosis. Consequently, AIP1 may prove to be an important predictor of recovery from lung cancer and could become a new therapeutic target for lung cancer treatment.