Clinical value of serum neuron specific enolase in patients with small cell lung cancer and non-small cell lung cancer

OBJECTIVE: To determine the clinical value in diagnosis, treatment and prognosis of serum neuron specific enolase (NSE) in patients with small-cell lung cancer and non-small cell lung cancer. METHODS: The serum NSE of patients or healthy persons were detected by the radioimmunological method, including 182 non-small cell lung cancer, 33 small-cell lung cancer, 161 benign pulmonary disease, 158 healthy examinations, and 70 patients were detected dynamically during effective treatment.RESULTS: According to the normal level of serum NSE [(9.5±3.8)μg/L], and abnormal rate was 10.1%(16/158) in healthy persons. In patients with benign pulmonary disease, the level was [(10.0±5.4)μg/L] and the abnormal rate was 16.8%(27/161). In patients with lung cancer, the level was [(20.7±22.5)μg/L] and the abnormal rate was 40.0%(86/215). The level of serum NSE and abnormal rate in patients with lung cancer were significantly higher than that in other persons (P=0.004 and 0.004, respectively). The difference of NSE between the patients with benign pulmonary disease and the healthy person was not significant, P=0.095. NSE in serum were increasing accoding to the advancing of stage in lung cancer, and could be decreased significantly after treatment (P=0.004 and 0.003, respectively). The prognosis of the patients with low level of NSE was better than that of ones with high level of NSE. CONCLUSION: NSE is an valuable tumor marker in small-cell lung cancer, and have some value in diagnosis, evlauation of tumor response and predicting the prognosis of non-small cell lung cancer.