Expression profiling defines a recurrence signature in lung adenocarcinoma

Lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer death worldwide. Overall 5-year survival is about 10-15% and despite curative intent surgery, treatment failure is primarily due to recurrent disease. Conventional prognostic markers are unable to determine which patients with completely resected disease within each stage group are likely to relapse. To identify a gene signature associated with recurrent adenocarcinoma (AC) of lung, we analyzed primary tumour gene expression for a total of 48 stage I ACs on 22,323 element microarrays, comparing expression profiles for individuals who remained disease-free for a minimum of 36 months with those from individuals whose disease recurred within 18 months of complete resection. Genome-wide profiling has revealed a distinct gene expression profile for recurrent lung AC which may be clinically useful as a prognostic tool. Keywords: non-small cell lung carcinoma, squamous cell, tumor recurrence, expression profiling Expression profiling using 22K element microarrays of 48 adenocarcinomas.