Clinical implications of cyclins, cyclin-dependent kinases, RB and E2F1 in squamous-cell lung carcinoma

Abstract

In the search for new risk factors at the molecular and cellular levels, clinical data [lymph-node involvement (LN) and stage] were used and 104 squamous-cell lung carcinomas were analyzed by immuno-histochemistry for expression of cyclin D1, cyclin A, cdk2, cdk4, RB, and E2F1. The results of the univariate analysis of all 8 factors showed that cyclin A and cdk2 gave the best prognostic information, while no prognostic value could be found associated with cyclin DI, cdk4, RB and E2F1. The subsequent multivariate analysis of all possible combinations of the important factors showed that the pairs LN/cyclin A, LN/cdk2 and cyclin A/cdk2, and the triplet LN/cyclin A/cdk2 yielded the best prognostic information. It was essentially better than the information given by a single factor.