Expression of CMTM4 shows clinical significance in lung cancer

BACKGROUND: Human chemokine-like factor (CKLF)-like MARVEL transmembrane domain-containing family (CMTM) is implicated in the pathogenesis of immune, reproductive systems and various cancers. However, the expression and clinical significance of CMTM4 in lung cancer have not been identified. METHODS: We performed immunohistochemistry to detect the expression of CMTM4 in 75 paired lung adenocarcinoma and non-tumor lung tissues. The correlation between CMTM4 expression and clinical significance of lung cancer patients was analyzed by Chi-square test. Kaplan-Meier method and Log-Rank test were used to calculate the survival time of lung cancer patients. RESULTS: We found that CMTM4 was positively expressed in 34/75 (45.3%) cases of lung adenocarcinoma tissues, while positively expressed in 59/75 (78.6%) cases of non-tumor lung tissues, suggesting a lower expression of CMTM4 in lung adenocarcinoma tissues than non-tumor lung tissues (P<0.05). In addition, the negative expression of CMTM4 was associated with gender, smoking, and metastasis in lung cancer patients. Moreover, lung cancer patients with negative expression of CMTM4 had a shorter survival time than the patients with positive expression of CMTM4. COX regression analysis showed that CMTM4 was an independent prognostic factor for the overall survival of lung cancer patients. CONCLUSIONS: Our study supports that CMTM4 can be used as a new marker for the treatment and prognosis of lung cancer.