Diagnostic utility of PAX2 and PAX5 in distinguishing non-small cell lung cancer from small cell lung cancer

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death in both men and women and consists of different histological types. Histopathological examination and accurate subtype diagnosis has become increasingly important in guiding patient management and, as such, is the most important currently available lung cancer "biomarker". In this study, we examined the expression of PAX2 and PAX5 by immunohistochemistry in 47 cases of lung cancer and 13 cases of pneumonia. The results demonstrated that PAX2 were detected in 82.8% (24/29) of NSCLC, 0% (0/18) of SCLC and 7.7% (1/13) of pneumonia, respectively; However, PAX5 were detected in 15/18 cases (83.3%) of SCLC, 6.8% (2/29) of NSCLC and 7.7% (1/13) of pneumonia. Further, the samples with lymphatic metastasis had remarkable higher positive PAX2 or PAX5 than that without metastases. Overall, our data indicated that PAX2 and PAX5 differentially expressed in NSCLC and SCLC. Thus, PAX2 and PAX5 are useful biomarker in the differential diagnosis of lung cancer.