HISTOCHEMICAL DETECTION OF CARBOHYDRATES IN NON-SMALL CELL CARCINOMA SECTIONS: ITS ASSOCIATION WITH SOME CLINIC-PATHOLOGICAL FEATURES

Further investigations in order to elucidate the biological significance of mucins in carcinomas have been suggested. For that reason, in this study it was evaluated the tissue expression of periodic acid-Schiff (PAS), PAS-Diastase (PAS-D) and Alcian blue (AB) positive substances in lung carcinoma, as well as its association with a variety of clinic-pathological features. In general, 47.8% of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) sections were PAS positive, 30.4% expressed PAS-D positive substances and 20.3% were positive to AB staining. Concerning to small cell lung carcinoma (SCLC), no expression of PAS-D and AB molecules were detected (0/11) while, 9.1% of cases were stained with PAS. When the expression of PAS positive reaction were compared between NSCLC and SCLC significantly differences were evidenced (p = .02). The histochemical staining with PAS, PAS-D and AB was significantly higher in adenocarcinoma as compared with epidermoid carcinoma and the rest of tumors (p < .000, p = .001 and p = .03; respectively). Interestingly, the tissue expression of PAS and AB-positive substances was higher in patient displaying other sites metastasis (p = .001 and p = .009; respectively) as compared with patients with no metastatic disease. However, the impact of mucins expression in the prognosis of NSCLC patients should be re-evaluated using an increased number of cases.