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  • Clinical Oncology
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Significance of plasminogen activator inhibitor 2 as a prognostic marker in primary lung cancer: association of decreased plasminogen activator inhibitor 2 with lymph node metastasis

Abstract

The expression of urokinase-type plasminogen activator (u-PA), u-PA receptor (u-PAR) and plasminogen activator inhibitor (PAI) 1 and 2 was examined in 105 cases of primary lung cancer tissue using immunohistochemical staining and reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) techniques. The expression of u-PA, u-PAR and PAI-1 was detected in approximately 80% of primary lung cancers, whereas detectable PAI-2 expression was observed only in half of the overall cases. We assessed the relationships between the expression pattern and clinicopathological findings and found that a diminished expression level of PAI-2 was significantly correlated with lymph node metastasis and a poor prognosis. These results indicate that PAI-2 may play a critical role in the regulation of extracellular matrix degradation during tumour cell invasion and metastasis, and the expression of PAI-2 may be useful as a marker for evaluating the prognosis of lung cancer.

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Yoshino, H., Endo, Y., Watanabe, Y. et al. Significance of plasminogen activator inhibitor 2 as a prognostic marker in primary lung cancer: association of decreased plasminogen activator inhibitor 2 with lymph node metastasis. Br J Cancer 78, 833–839 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/bjc.1998.588

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/bjc.1998.588

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