Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 4, 2026
Practical Considerations in Studying Metastatic Lung Colonization in Osteosarcoma Using the Pulmonary Metastasis Assay
Published on: March 12, 2018
[Clinical study on the bone marrow micrometastases in patients with non-small cell lung cancer by immunohistochemical
Wuwei Yang1, Yunhua Bao, Weina Ma
1Department of Lung Cancer, Hospital 307, Academy of Military Medical Sciences, Beijing 100039, P.R.China.
Background:
To investigate the immunohistochemical detected method and the clinical incidence of the bone marrow micrometastases (BMM) in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and to analyze the sensitivity and specificity and clinical application value.
Methods:
Bone marrow samples were collected from the anterior superior iliac spines or posterior superior iliac spines of 53 patients with NSCLC in clinical stage I to III and 15 patients in stage IV, and the BMM was detected by immunohistochemical techniques (IHC) using monoclonal antibodies AE1/AE3 against cytokeratin. Chi-square test was used statistically.
Results:
The IHC sensitivity could be 10⁻⁵. The BMM positive rate was 22.6% (12/53) in stage I to III and 53.3% (8/15) in stage IV, and there was a significant difference in the BMM positive rate between stage I to III and stage IV (P < 0.05). No correlation was observed between BMM and sex, age, KPS, pathology classification and cancer cell differentiation.
Conclusions:
The detection of BMM by IHC is convenient, sensitive, and specific. It might be helpful to diagnose bone marrow micrometastasis in patients with NSCLC.
