The serum level of CC chemokine ligand 18 correlates with the prognosis of non-small cell lung cancer.

Background: CC chemokine ligand 18 (CCL18) is a chemotactic cytokine involved in the pathogenesis and progression of various cancers. Our previous research showed that the expression of CCL18 is obviously higher in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) than in the adjacent normal tissues, suggesting its role in NSCLC.

Methods: We further examined the serum level of CCL18 in 80 NSCLC patients with enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and simultaneously analyzed the survival curve of these patients by the Kaplan-Meier method, and then utilized a log-rank test to evaluate the correlation of CCL18 expression with the malignant progression of NSCLC.

Results: Our results showed that the median serum concentration of CCL18 was significantly elevated to 436.11 ng/mL in NSCLC patients compared to 41.97 ng/ml in healthy people (<0.01), which was also positively related to the expression of lung cancer biomarkers carcinoma-embryonic antigen and cytokeratin fragment antigen 21-1. Moreover, correlation analysis showed that an increased level of serum CCL18 was associated with a worse survival time in NSCLC patients.

Conclusion: Our findings suggest that the serum CCL18 level of NSCLC patients was negatively correlated with the prognosis, thus suggesting that CCL18 may serve as a potential circulating biomarker for NSCLC diagnosis.