Mucinous bronchioloalveolar carcinomas display a specific pattern of mucin gene expression among primary lung adenocarcinomas*,**
Section snippets
Tissue selection and histologic definition
Surgical specimens of primary lung adenocarcinomas were collected from 34 patients (mean age 62 years; range 37-79 years). The patients had no metastases at the time of surgery and no pleural disease or other tumor at any site during the follow-up (at least 18 months of postoperative clinical follow-up available). Twenty-five of 34 patients had a smoking history. The pathology of the tumors was confirmed by the consensus of 2 pathologists. Of the 34 selected adenocarcinomas, 17 cases were
Histochemistry and cytokeratin expression
Mucus secretion was detected in all cases of mucinous-type BACs (Fig 1A), in 3 of 8 cases of nonmucinous-type adenocarcinomas in very limited areas, and in 12 of 17 cases of non-BACs.
Discussion
The present study assessed the pattern of mucin expression for MUC1-4, MUC5AC, MUC5B, and MUC6-7 at the mRNA level in 34 primary lung adenocarcinomas (17 BACs, 17 non-BACs) and for MUC5AC and MUC5B at the protein level in 25 cases. Lung adenocarcinomas are known to be very heterogeneous clinically and histologically. Mixtures of acinar, papillary, bronchioloalveolar, and solid adenocarcinoma with mucin formation are common. The definition of BACs is now restricted to noninvasive tumors without
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the members of European consortium (contract CEE BMH4-CT98-3222), especially Ingemar Carlstedt, for providing polyclonal antibodies against MUC5AC and MUC5B, and M. C. Dieu, E. Deschodt, V. Vervaecke, and V. Dumetz for excellent technical assistance.
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Supported by Association pour la Recherche sur le Cancer and CHU de Lille, contract grant number 96/09.29/95,95, and by the Ligue contre le Cancer du Pas de Calais.
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Address correspondence and reprint requests to Marie-Christine Copin, MD, PhD, Service d'Anatomie et Cytologie Pathologiques, Hôpital Calmette, CHRU, Bd J. Leclercq, 59037 Lille Cedex, France.