CD4+, IL17 and Foxp3 Expression in Different pTNM Stages of Operable Non-small Cell Lung Cancer and Effects on Disease Prognosis

Objective: To investigate the effects of CD4+, IL17 and Foxp3 expression on prognosis of operable non-smallcell lung cancer (NSCLC) with different pTNM stages.
Methods: Expression of CD4+, IL17 and Foxp3 in 102cases of NSCLC tissues and adjacent cancer tissues was detected by immunohistochemistry and associationswith prognosis with different pTNM stages were analyzed. The Chi-square test was used to compare count data.Survival differences were evaluated by Kaplan-Meier single factor analysis and the COX regression model wasused to analyze the relationship between influential factors and the disease prognosis. The significance level wasα = 0.05.
Results: Expression of CD4, IL-17 and Foxp3 significantly varied in different pTNM stages of NSCLCtissues (P < 0.05). The same was true for CD4 expression (P < 0.05). The median survival time (MST) in thepositive CD4 expression group was evidently higher than that in the negative group (25.8/23.9 months). Comparedwith stage Ⅲ, the MST difference of stages Ⅰ and Ⅱ in the positive CD4 expression group were statisticallysignificant (P < 0.05). The MST in positive IL-17 and Foxp3 expression groups was obviously lower than that inthe corresponding negative group (P < 0.05) (25.6/35.1 months and 24/35.3 months, respectively). There was asignificant difference of MST between any two of three stages of positive IL-17 expression group (P < 0.05), andit was the same with positive Foxp3 expression group. TNM stage, negative CD4 expression, and positive IL-17and Foxp3 expression were the main risk factors for the prognosis of NSCLC.
Conclusions: Surgical prognosisof NSCLC can be better assessed by the combination of clinical staging and expression of IL17 and Foxp3.