Abstract

OBJECTIVE:

To evaluate the expressions of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and phosphorylated Akt (p-Akt) in non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

METHODS:

189 NSCLC samples were made into tissue microarray and immunohistochemistry was used to detect the expression of EGFR and p-Akt proteins. The association of the expressions of EGFR and p-Akt protein with the survival time was evaluated.

RESULTS:

The EGFR and p-Akt protein positive rates were 54.5% and 51.3% respectively. Univariate analysis showed that the EGFR expression was associated with gender (chi2 = 4.267, P = 0.039), histology (chi2 = 14.749, P = 0.002), differentiation (chi2 = 6.295, P = 0.043), and pathological stage (chi2 = 9.318, P = 0.025). Logistic multivariate analysis showed that only the pathological type was associated with EGFR expression (P = 0.047). The p-Akt expression was not related with the above clinicopathological features (P > 0.05) Kaplan-Meire survival analysis showed that neither of the two proteins had an impact on the patients' survival (P = 0.972 and P = 0.903 respectively).

CONCLUSION:

Protein expressions of IEGFR and p-Akt have no impact on NSCLC patients' survival, thus so far they can not serve as molecular staging or prognostic indicators.