Clinical significance of determining blood CEA-mRNA and CK19-mRNA by nested PCR in patients with lung cancer

Objective To study the expression of CEA-mRNA and CK19-mRNA , and the clinical significance of combined examination of CEA-mRNA and CK19-mRNA in peripheral blood of patients with lung cancer.Methods Using nested PCR, we examined the expressions of CEA-mRNA and CK19-mRNA in the peripheral blood of 43 patients with lung cancer, 12 patients with benign diseases, and 13 healthy controls.In the patients with lung cancer,statistical analysis was made of the pathological types of tumors,the clinical stages and the sensitivity and specifity of assays.Results Among the 43 patients with lung cancer , there were 21 patients with positive expression of CEA-mRNA( 48.8%), and 24 patients with positive expression of CK19-mRNA(55.8%).Among the 12 patients with benign diseases, there was only one patient with positive expression of CK19-mRNA(8.3%), and the expression of CEA-mRNA was negative for all the 12 patients.For the 13 healthy controls,the expressions of CK19-mRNA and CEA-mRNA were all negative.In patients with small cell carcinoma, adenocarcinoma, and squamous carcinoma of lungs the rates of positive expression of CEA-mRNA were 16.7%, 81.3%,and 33.3%,respectively; and those of CK19-mRNA were 33.3%,50.0%,and 66.7%,respectively.The rates of positive expression of CEA-mRNA and CK19-mRNA in stages Ⅲ and Ⅳ were higer than those in stages Ⅰ and Ⅱ.Conclusion Both CEA-mRNA and CK19-mRNA can be used as markers to detect the micro-metastasis in the peripheral blood of patients with lung cancer; therefore,combined assay can improve the accuracy.