Low expression of FZD1 correlates with poor prognosis in non-small cell lung cancer

Purpose: Frizzled-1 (FZD1) is closely associated with development of various tumors, but its expression pattern in lung cancer tissues has not been elucidated enough, including the correlation in clinicopathological features and the prognostic significance of FZD1 of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients. Methods: We evaluated immunohistochemical staining for FZD1 protein in 152 cases of NSCLC. We correlated the line of differentiation with outcome using Chi-square test and Kaplan-Meier analysis. Results: High-expression of FZD1 was found in 88/152 (57.9%) of NSCLC patients by immunohistochemical analysis. The expression level of FZD1 was strongly significantly associated with TNM stage (P = 0.006) in NSCLC lesions, but not significantly with other clinicopathological features. On Kaplan-Meier survival curves analysis, low FZD1 expression had shorter overall survival rate and disease-free survival than those with high FZD1 (P = 0.001 and P = 0.004, respectively). Conclusion: These results suggest that low expression of FZD1 might indicate poor prognosis in NSCLC patients and our observations demonstrate that expression of FZD1 serve as a biomarker of disease progression.