Background: It has been proven that heparanase and Ki-67 had relationship with occurrence and metastasis in lung cancer. The aim of this work was to investigate the expressions of heparanase and Ki-67 and to explore their clinical significance and mutual relations in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
Methods: Immunohistochemical method was used to detect the heparanase and Ki-67expression in the routinely paraffin-embedded sections of surgical specimen of 70 cases with NSCLC and 20 ones with normal lung tissues.
Results: Heparanase and Ki-67 were highly expressed in lung cancer tissues (72.9% and 85.7%) while negative in epithelia of normal lung tissues. The expression of heparanase was significantly correlated with TNM stage (P=0.044) and lymphatic metastasis (P=0.001). The expression of Ki-67 was significantly correlated with tumor size (P=0.03) and histology type (P=0.001) and differentiation (P=0.01) and lymphatic metastasis (P=0.01) and TNM stage (P=0.043). The expression of heparanase and Ki-67 was no significant difference (P=0.323).
Conclusions: Heparanase and Ki-67 were involved in the occurrence and development of lung cancer and they may predict patients prognosis, while the expression of heparanase and Ki-67 had no association with NSCLC, which may contribute to the different mechanisms involved in tumor occurrence and development.