Significance of autocrine motility factor receptor gene expression as a prognostic factor in non-small-cell lung cancer.

Autocrine motility factor receptor (AMF-R) has been shown to play an important role in tumor cell migration, invasion and metastasis. We have detected AMF-R expression in tissue specimens from patients with non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and have assessed their clinical characteristics. Using RT-PCR and immunohistochemistry, we quantified the expression of AMF-R in 47 patients with NSCLC who underwent curative tumor resection, to investigate the relationship between AMF-R expression and clinicopathologic factors and prognosis. RT-PCR results agreed well with the immunohistochemic results (p < 0.0001). In 47 NSCLC patients, 34 (72.3%) samples were evaluated as having high AMF-R gene expression. AMF-R gene expression was significantly associated with lymph node metastasis and stage (p = 0.0295 for lymph node metastasis, p = 0.0152 for stage). The overall survival rate for patients with high AMF-R gene-expressing tumors was significantly worse than for those whose tumors had low AMF-R expression (p = 0.0029). Multivariate analysis also showed that AMF-R gene expression was significantly related to survival (p = 0.0165). These data indicate that AMF-R may contribute to tumor progression and that AMF-R gene expression can serve as a useful prognostic marker in NSCLC. Copyright 2001 Wiley-Liss, Inc.