Introduction: Primary sarcomatoid carcinoma of the lung (PSC) is a rare subtype of non-small cell lung cancer, which has a bad prognosis and lacks biomarkers for its diagnosis and prognosis. Recent studies suggested that KDM6B (lysine demethylase 6B), also known as Jumonji domain-containing protein D3 (JMJD3), plays an oncogenic role in various human cancers. However, abnormalities of JMJD3 in sarcomatoid carcinoma of the lung and its clinical prognostic significance have not been determined. Therefore, the present study aimed to ascertain the relationship between JMJD3 and PSC.
Materials and methods: In this study, immunohistochemistry (IHC) was performed to examine the expression of JMJD3 in a tissue microarray (TMA) containing 96 cases of PSC.
Result: Overexpression of JMJD3 was observed in nuclei of the PSC cells. Further analyses indicated that the overexpression of JMJD3 was significantly associated with tumor size, pN stage, and clinical stage. By univariate survival analysis, positive expression of JMJD3 was significantly correlated with shortened patient survival. More importantly, multivariate analysis identified JMJD3 as an independent prognostic factor for sarcomatoid carcinoma of the lung.
Conclusion: These findings provide evidence that JMJD3 protein levels, as examined by IHC, may act as a novel prognostic biomarker for patients with primary sarcomatoid carcinoma of the lung.
Keywords: primary sarcomatoid carcinoma of the lung, JMJD3, IHC, prognosis