Kuemmel A et al. - In a study to determine the clinical relevance of carbohydrate-induced conformational tumor-associated MUC1 epitope (TA-MUC1) in lung cancer, it seems that the presence of TA-MUC1 is a favorable prognostic factor in this cohort of NSCLC pts, in particular if lymph node metastases are present Methods
85 paraffin-embedded tissue sections of NSCLC pts were stained with the monoclonal antibody PankoMab (against TA-MUC1) and compared with the established antibodies E29 and 214D4 regarding prognostic relevance
Results
TA-MUC1 is virtually absent in bronchial epithelium
Only staining with PankoMab, but not with E29 or 214D4, was correlated with pts’ survival
When regarding interactions of MUC1 antibody staining results and clinico-pathological parameters, pts with lymph node metastasis lacking PankoMab staining were attributed the highest risk