The restriction fragment length polymorphism of c-Ha-ras-1 and L-myc genes and expression of cell surface effector molecules were studied to determine their potential utility as markers for assessing risk of metastasis in 84 lung cancer patients.
Our results indicate that, in patients with lung cancer, genetic disposition with respect to the L-myc gene influences the extent of metastasis, the incidence of multiple cancers and prognosis.
Two abnormalities showed a significant correlation with clinical course: MYC gene amplification showed an inverse correlation with tumor recurrence (r = -0.44, p = 0.01), and a small increase in MYCL gene copies on chromosome I correlated with the presence of metastases (r = 0.61, p = 0.001).
In metastatic tumours, amplification of ERBB gene was detected in three metastatic tumours (9.4%), and all of them had allelic deletion of the LMYC gene.
These results indicate a clear genetic influence on metastases and a consequent poor prognosis for certain patients of lung cancer; L-MYC restriction length fragment polymorphism is thus shown to be a useful marker for predicting the metastatic potential of human lung cancer.