The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Vol 96, 840-848, Copyright © 1988 by The American Association for Thoracic Surgery and The Western Thoracic Surgical Association
Biochemical and cytogenetic studies of human lung cancers
JR Benfield, JC Wain, M Derrick, SS Smith, Y Ohnuki, SE Bates, J Shively, RL Teplitz and WG Hammond
Division of Thoracic Surgery, City of Hope Medical Center, Duarte.
In ongoing studies, we have tested resected lung cancers from 41 men and 49
women; of those with primary lung cancer, 46 patients are free of disease
and 35 have died of cancer or have persistent disease. Measurements and
studies were as follows: total cellular deoxyribonucleic acid content by
image analysis (n = 77); total genomic deoxyribonucleic acid methylation
state and banding patterns from probed Southern blots (n = 36);
radioimmunoassay for motilin, bombesin, gastrin, vasoactive intestinal
peptide, and cholecystokinin (n = 18); and cytogenetic analysis (n = 39).
All lung cancers were hyperploid. Adenocarcinomas and epidermoid carcinomas
were generally hexaploid to nearly septaploid; comparisons by stage and
histologic features suggested potential prognostic correlations. There was
general hypomethylation of deoxyribonucleic acid (p less than 0.001).
Deoxyribonucleic acid digests from restriction endonuclease Hpa II, when
probed with deoxyribonucleic acid homologous to KPN, showed banding
patterns that separated histologically indistinguishable primary
adenocarcinomas and metastatic adenocarcinomas from one another. Cancers
studied with radioimmunoassay were all negative for polypeptide hormones.
Five cancers grew adequately in vitro to permit study of 190 detailed
karyotypes (20 to 50 per tumor). Chromosome modal numbers ranged from 49 to
109. There were from 4 to 20 clearly abnormal marker chromosomes per tumor;
abnormality derived from chromosome 1 was prevalent. Ten of 19 tumors
xenotransplanted to nude mice were carried through two to five transplant
generations without a change in histologic patterns.
