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Immunohistochemical Evidence of Urokinase-type Plasminogen Activator in Primary and Metastatic Tumors of Pulmonary Adenocarcinoma¹

Department of Surgery II, Faculty of Medicine, Kyushu University, 3-1-1 Maidashi, Higashi-ku, Fukuoka 812, Japan

The urokinase-type plasminogen activator (u-PA) was used to study 96 cases of lung adenocarcinoma and 49 cases of lymph node metastatic adenocarcinoma. We made use of the immunohistochemistry of paraffinized samples. u-PA was detected in the cytoplasm of tumor cells, and the number of positive cells was higher in patients with T₂ or T₃ than in those with T₁ disease (P < 0.01). These u-PA-positive tumor cells were more frequent in patients with N₂ than in those with N₁ disease (P < 0.01). Such cells were also detected in patients with N₁ rather than N₀ disease (P < 0.01). When we compared the frequency of u-PA-positive tumor cells in metastatic lesions with that in primary ones, the former tended to be higher. On the other hand, the frequency of u-PA-positive cells in primary tumors of patients with a recurrence was higher than in those with no recurrence. Thus, u-PA is an important prognostic indicator associated with tumor growth and lymph node spread. If u-PA is detected in a tumor, a recurrence can be expected.

¹ This work was supported in part by Grant-in-Aid for General Scientific Research 03670659 from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Science, and Culture.

² To whom requests for reprints should be addressed.

Received 1/25/91. Accepted 4/24/91.

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