Disturbance of systemic antioxidant profile in nonsmall cell lung carcinoma.

The present study aimed to determine the alterations of antioxidant activities in erythrocytes from patients with nonsmall cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC). A comparative study of the systemic antioxidant activities in red blood cell lysate from subjects with NSCLC and healthy control subjects was conducted. The antioxidants catalase, superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GPx) were measured using chemical kinetic reactions under spectrophotometry. In total, 189 cases of mostly advanced-stage IIIB or stage IV NSCLC and 202 healthy controls were studied. In subjects with lung cancer, there was similar catalase activity, lower SOD activity (median (interquartile range) 13.4 (9.0-27.2) versus 48.7 (27.0-64.3) U x (ghaemoglobulin(Hb)(-1)), and higher GPx activity (175.2 (126.6-288.3) versus 49.2 (39.5-59.2) mU x (gHb)(-1)) compared with controls. The antioxidant activities in lung cancer subjects were not associated with age, sex, smoking status, or tumour cell types. However, more advanced disease (stage IV compared with stage IIIB) was associated with lower SOD activity. Using multivariable analysis, the presence of lung cancer independently predicted SOD and GPx activities. In conclusion, nonsmall cell lung carcinoma in Chinese subjects is associated with alterations in systemic antioxidant activities, which may play an important role in carcinogenesis.     

Detection of extrapulmonary lesions with integrated PET/CT in the staging of lung cancer.

The aim of the present study was to assess retrospectively the additional value of positron emission tomography (PET)/computed tomography (CT) in the detection of unexpected extrapulmonary lesions in the staging of patients with a malignant pulmonary lesion in comparison with CT and PET used alone. A total of 217 patients with a pathologically proven lung tumour underwent PET/CT. CT, PET and PET/CT were evaluated in the detection of extrapulmonary lesions. These abnormalities were compared with the final diagnosis obtained from the medical records and statistical analysis was carried out. In total, 108 lesions were clinically detected. PET/CT showed a sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values and accuracy of 100, 81, 71, 100 and 87%, respectively, for the detection of extrapulmonary lesions and 92, 98, 89, 98 and 97%, respectively, for the detection of malignant extrapulmonary lesions. PET/CT was significantly better than CT and PET used alone. Conventional staging work-up has a poor sensitivity in detecting second primary cancers or unexpected metastases. The detection of malignant extrapulmonary lesions is necessary for correct tumour staging. By combining both metabolic and anatomical information, positron emission tomography/computed tomography is able to depict more unexpected extrapulmonary lesions than computed tomography and positron emission tomography used alone, and positron emission tomography/computed tomography provides more additional information of malignancy or benignancy of lesions detected with one of the two imaging modalities alone.