Evaluation of serum neural cell adhesion molecule as a new tumor marker in small cell lung cancer

Abstract

Background. Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is distinguished from other histologic types of lung cancer by possessing a variety of neuroendocrine properties. Neuron‐specific enolase (NSE) is the most frequently elevated tumor marker for patients with SCLC at diagnosis. To assess the value of neural cell adhesion molecules (NCAM), another possible tumor marker for small cell lung cancer, NCAM was evaluated in the sera of patients with histologically confirmed SCLC in two prospective multicenter trials. Methods. The study includes 221 patients with SCLC, normal human blood donors (n = 34), patients with benign lung disease (n = 53), and patients with non‐small cell lung cancer (n = 28). NCAM was determined by means of an enzyme immunoassay, NSE by a radioimmunoassay. Results. The data show the following: (1) 51% (113 of 221) of all patients with SCLC had NCAM levels higher than 20 U/ml, 34% (75 of 221) had NSE levels higher than 25 ng/ml; (2) levels of both markers significantly differ between limited and extensive disease patients; (3) patients with pathologic NCAM and NSE levels have significantly shorter survival times; (4) a positive correlation between pretreatment NSE and NCAM levels was found (n = 221, r = 0.60); and (5) a correlation between serum marker levels and clinical status was found in follow‐up studies of 19 patients. Conclusions. From these data, it is concluded that NCAM is, along with NSE, a potential tumor marker for SCLC.

Sensitive detection of rare cancer cells in sputum and peripheral blood samples of patients with lung cancer by preproGRP-specific RT-PCR

“…Similarly, NCAM is consistently expressed in neuroendocrine lung cancer cells and has also been described as a tumor-marker protein for SCLC. 24 We have detected NCAM transcripts in blood samples of 10 negative control patients, which is in congruence with the literature describing the expression of NCAM-140, the most prevalent NCAM isoform in SCLC, in natural killer cells as well. 25,26 Highly sialylated isoforms of NCAM preferentially occur during embryogenesis but also in SCLC, where they have been hypothesized to confer aggressive growth properties and a higher metastatic potential.…”

Identification of Five Candidate Lung Cancer Biomarkers by Proteomics Analysis of Conditioned Media of Four Lung Cancer Cell Lines

“…With regard to current biomarkers used in the clinic, this is the expected concentration range, giving us hope that new lung cancer markers should be detectable in serum. Through our method, we successfully identified proteins that are putative or currently used as biomarkers of lung cancer, including CEA (27,28), pro-GRP (29,31), SCC antigen (47,48), tumor M2-PK (49), NCAM (35)(36)(37), chromogranin A (29), and chromogranin B (30). In addition, we identified putative markers previously reported in lung-related proteomics studies such as member C1 of aldo-keto reductase family 1 identified by Huang et al (25) as dihydrodiol dehydrogenase and matrix metallopeptidase 1 found to be overexpressed in lung cancer patients and especially in late stage (18).…”

Serum polysialylated neural cell adhesion molecule in childhood neuroblastoma

“…In adult patients, serum polysialylated NCAM levels above 20 kU 1-' have been shown to be pathological (Jaques et al, 1993;Kaiser et al, 1994). We found levels of up to 62.9 kU 1-l in healthy children in whom the levels are on average higher (mean 26.8 kU 1-') than in adults.…”

“…Recently. it has been shown that the serum levels of polysialylated NCAM are elevated in adult patients with small-cell lung cancer (Jaques et al 1993) and multiple myeloma (Kaiser et al 1994). high levels being associated with a poor prognosis (Ledermann et al 1994: Smith et al, 1996.…”