Expression of CK19 and CEA in the micrometastasis of peripheral blood in patients with non-small cell lung cancer: a comparative analysis.

Objective To detect the expression of CK19 and CEA in peripheral blood of non-small cell lung cancer(NSCLC) patients and discuss the possibility of indicating NSCLC micrometastases.Method The expression of CK19 and CEA mRNA were analyzed by RT-PCR in 48 NSCLC patients,15 benign lung disease(BLD) patients and 10 healthy volunteers.Result The positive expression rate of CK19 and CEA was 68.75%,58.33% in NSCLC group respectively.The BLD group was 13.33%,6.67% respectively.None was detected in control group.The positive expression rate of CK19 and CEA in NSCLC group were both statistically higher than those in the other groups(P0.05).They were closely related with the clinical stage and lymph node metastasis.There was no relationship between pathological type and tumor cell differentiating degrees in NSCLC patients.Conclusion CK19 and CEA in peripheral blood might be a suitable molecular marker for the diagnosis of micrometastasis in NSCLC.Combined examination of CK19 and CEA in peripheral blood can improve the positive detection rate of NSCLC.