Galectins as targets for angiostatic cancer therapy

TLDR: The current study performs extensive galectin expression profi ling in a retrospective study using frozen and paraffi n embedded tumor tissues from 87 stage I/II NSCLC patients to help to identify early stage NSCLc patients that might benefi t most from adjuvant chemotherapy.

Abstract: Approximately 30-40% of the patients with early stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) will present with recurrent disease within two years of resection. Here, we performed extensive galectin expression profi ling in a retrospective study using frozen and paraffi n embedded tumor tissues from 87 stage I/II NSCLC patients. Our data show that galectin mRNA expression in NSCLC is confi ned to galectin-1,-3,-4,-7,-8, and -9. Next to stage, univariable Cox regression analysis identifi ed galectin-1, galectin-9FL and galectin-9∆5 as possible prognostic markers. KaplanMeier survival estimates revealed that overall survival was signifi cantly shorter in patients that express galectin-1 above median levels, i.e. 23.0 (2.9-43.1) vs. 59.9 (47.7-72.1) months (p=0.020) as well as in patients that express galectin-9∆5 or galectin-9FL below the median, resp. 59.9 (41.9-75.9) vs. 32.8 (8.7-56.9) months (p=0.014) or 23.2 (-0.4-46.8) vs. 58.9 (42.9-74.9) months (p=0.042). All three galectins were also prognostic for disease free survival. Multivariable Cox regression analysis showed that for OS, the most signifi cant prognostic model included stage, age, gal-1 and gal-9∆5 while the model for DFS included stage, age and gal-9∆5. In conclusion, the current study confi rms the prognostic value of galectin-1 and identifi es galectin-9∆5 as a novel potential prognostic marker in early stage NSCLC. These fi ndings could help to identify early stage NSCLC patients that might benefi t most from adjuvant chemotherapy.