Expression and clinical significance of MMP-9 and EGFR in patients with non-small cell lung cancer

Objective To investigate the expression of MMP-9 and EGFR in non-small cell lung cancer and they're relationship between them and the prognostic significance.Methods The expression of MMP-9 and EGFR were detected in 60 NSCLC samples,20 lung tissues adjacent to cancer and 5 normal lung tissues as control by immunohistochemical technique (streptavidin-peroxidase conjugate method,S-P).Results The positive expression of MMP-9 and EGFR in 60 cases NSCLC was 63.33% and 65.00% respectively which was significantly higher than that in 20 lung tissues adjacent to cancer and 5 normal lung tissues(P0.05).The MMP-9 and EGFR positive expression were not correlated to age,sex,smoking histology and the pathologic types of tumor cell(P0.05),The positive expression of MMP-9 protein was related with TNM staging and also related to lymph node metastasis(P0.05),The positive expression of EGFR protein was related with tumor magnitude,cell differentiation and also related to TNM staging,lymph node metastasis(P0.05).Conclusion MMP-9 and EGFR may play important roles in NSCLC invasion and metastasis.Over expression of MMP-9 and EGFR could act as a reference to evaluate metastasis and unfavorable prognosis of NSCLC.