Research

Objective: To investigate the association between tissue expression level of the Von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) suppressor gene and outcome of platinum-based chemotherapy in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients. Material and Methods: Pathological samples of NSCLC patients were investigated for immunohistochemical analysis of VHL expression levels. The clinical data of patients were taken from the medical records. The prognosis was traced by phone. Chi-square, logistic regression and log-rank tests served for correlation analysis between gene expression levels and clinical data. Results: A total of 110 NSCLC patients were enrolled in this study, with a median follow-up time of 27.5 months and a median survival time of 24.3 months. 31 patients died during the follow up period (January 2016 – November 2020), 59 patients (53.6%, cohort I) presented with negative or weak and 51 patients (46.4%, cohort II) with moderate or high VHL expression levels. Neutropenia after platinum-based chemotherapy occurred more frequently in cohort I patients in comparison to cohort II Yejun Cao, Lingwei Wang, Qiying Zhang, Yang Han, Guangxue Wang, Liang Ma, diagnostic pathology 2020, 6:283 Jie Liu, Jinyi Wang, Zhengliang Sun, Tian Zhao, Guohan Chen,Xuan Hong ISSN 2364-4893 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17629/www.diagnosticpathology.eu-2020-6:283 2 patients (OR=0.264, 95% CI=0.085-0.818, P-value=0.021). VHL expression level was significantly correlated with the overall survival OS (Logrank test: P-value=0.007, HR= 4.219, 95% CI: 1.75-10.174, P-value=0.001); however not correlated with the disease free survival DFS (Logrank test:P-value=0.256, HR= 1.334, 95% CI: 0.6422.769, P-value=0.440). Conclusion: VHL expression level of NCLC is related with granulocytopenia and leukocytotoxicity after platinum-based chemotherapy. It might be used as a biomarker to predict the risk of neutropenia and the prognosis of NSCLC patients.