Prognostic value of oncoproteins for the survival of patients with nonsmall cell lung carcinomas.

Patients with non-small cell lung carcinomas whose tumors showed an overexpression of the oncogenes c-fos and c-N-ras at the protein level had significantly shorter survival times than those without overexpression of these oncogene products. (c-fos: p=0.0002, c-N-ras: p=0.002). Multivariate analysis showed that expression of proteins coded by c-fos and c-N-ras is a significant prognostic factor in addition to tumor staging and DNA ploidy. The prognostic value is improved by combining the expression of c-fos and c-N-ras products. A significant correlation between the expression of c-fos and c-N-ras products and the tumor take rate in nude mice was found.