The Clinicopathologic Significance To Investigate Apoptosis Index By TUNEL And The Expression Of Bax In Non Small Cell Lung Cancer And Their Correlation

Objective: To study the clinicopathologic significance to investigate apoptosis index(AI) by TUNEL and the expression of Bax in non small cell lung cancer and their correlation.Methods: The expression of Bax in forty-six resected specimens of non small cell lung cancer(NSCLC) and twenty-three non-tumor lung tissue were detected by S-P immunohistochemistry.Meanwhile,they were investigated the AI by TUNEL. Results: The positive rates of Bax in squamous cell carcinoma and adenocarcinoma were significantly lower than in non-tumor lung tissue(52.38% and 64% vs 91.30%, P<0.05); The positive expression of Bax have no relationship with tumor type, differentiation,the matastasis to lymph node,age and the stage of TNM(P>0.05). Meanwhile, the AI of squamous cell carcinoma and adenocarcinoma were investigated by TUNEL.It showed that both of the AI of squamous cell carcinoma and adenocarcinoma were lower than non-tumor lung tissue(5.67%±3.11% and 6.58%±3.58% vs 14.07%±5.16%,P<0.05),but according to their different clinicpathologic feature (different type,tumor differentiation,the matastasis to lymph node,age,the stage of TNM),they were grouped and compared with each other.It showed that the patients of the stageⅢ～ⅣNSCLC were higher than that of the stageⅠ～ⅡNSCLC and they had statistic significance(P<0.05).However, another clinicpathologic feature had no statistic significance(P>0.05).The AI of the patient with Bax positive expression was higher than that of the patient with Bax negative expression,but contrasted with each other,they had no statistic significance(6.93%±2.90% vs 5.04%±3.76%, P>0.05). Conclusion: It perhaps had some effect on occurrence and development of NSCLC that the expression of Bax was down regulated and the AI of NSCLC was decreased. However,the occurrence and development of tumor was a complex procedure,including various factor,different step and different stage.Wether the expression of Bax,the investigation of AI,and both of them were very useful index or not,we need more research in order to confirm.