Expression of CEACAM1 in adenocarcinoma of the lung:: A factor of independent prognostic significance

Purpose: To evaluate the prognostic relevance of CEACAM1 and sialyl Lewis X expression in adenocarcinomas of the lung. Patients and Methods: Paraffin wax sections of 93 patients with adenocarcinomas of the lung who underwent surgery between 1990 and 1995, were immunohistochemically investigated using monoclonal anti-CEACAM1 and sialyl Lewis X antibodies. The clinical course of all patients was followed up for a minimum of 5 years. Results: Sixty-one tumors were classified as CEACAM1-positive, and 32 were classified as CEACAM1-negative. Patients with CEACAM1-positive tumors had a significantly poorer overall (P = .00025) and relapse-free (P = .00029) survival than those with CEACAM1-negative tumors. Only three patients did not express the sialyl Lewis X glycotope, whereas 90 tumors (97%) were sialyl Lewis X-positive. In multivariate Cox regression analysis, next to tumor stage and sex, only the expression of CEACAM1 was a significant independent prognostic factor for survival. Conclusion: Expression of CEACAM1 was an independent prognostic factor in our patient population and can be used to stratify patients with adenocarcinomas of the lung into low-risk and high-risk groups. In contrast, the expression of sialyl Lewis X was of no prognostic relevance because it was expressed in 97% of all investigated tumors, and most likely has no influence on the function of CEACAM1 in this tumor entity. (C) 2002 by American Society of Clinical Oncology.