Combination of multiple gene markers to detect circulating tumor cells in the peripheral blood of patients with non-small cell lung cancer using real-time PCR.

Our study aims to determine the clinical significance of human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT), S-phase kinase-associated protein 2 (Skp2) and thyroid transcription factor-1 (TTF-1) mRNA expressions in peripheral blood (PB) of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Real-time polymerase chain reaction was used to investigate the gene expressions of hTERT, Skp2, TTF-1 as in the PB of 60 patients with NSCLC and 20 benign lung diseases. Statistical analyses were performed to examine the correlation between the expression of these mRNA markers and the clinical pathological features of NSCLC.