Can gene expression profiling predict survival for patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the lung?
GROUND: Lung cancer remains to be the leading cause of cancer death worldwide. Patients with similar lung cancer may experience quite different clinical outcomes. Reliable molecular prognostic markers are needed to characterize the disparity. In order to identify the genes responsible for the aggressiveness of squamous cell carcinoma of the lung, we applied DNA microarray technology to a case control study. Fifteen patients with surgically treated stage I squamous cell lung cancer were selected. Ten were one-to-one matched on tumour size and grade, age, gender, and smoking status; five died of lung cancer recurrence within 24 months (high-aggressive group), and five survived more than 54 months after surgery (low-aggressive group). Five additional tissues were included as test samples. Unsupervised and supervised approaches were used to explore the relationship among samples and identify differentially expressed genes. We also evaluated the gene markers’ accuracy in segregating samples
