MDC and BLC are independently associated with the significant risk of early stage lung adenocarcinoma

BACKGROUND This prospective study was designed to investigate the association between ten circulating inflammatory biomarkers and the risk for early stage lung adenocarcinoma. METHODS All inflammatory biomarkers were measured in 228 patients with early stage (IA to IIB) lung adenocarcinoma and 228 age-, sex- and smoking-matched healthy controls by using the Luminex bead-based assay. RESULTS Only two biomarkers were significantly associated with the risk of early stage lung adenocarcinoma after the Bonferroni correction: the multivariate odd ratio (OR) (95% confidence interval or CI) was 0.29 (0.16-0.53) for MDC and 4.17 (2.23-7.79) for BLC for the comparison of patients in the 4th quartile with the 1st quartile (both P<0.0001). When analysis was restricted to never smokers (196 patients/196 controls), MDC and BLC were still significantly associated with the risk of early stage lung adenocarcinoma (OR, 95% CI, P: 0.37, 0.21-0.66, P<0.0001 for MDC and 2.78, 1.48-5.22, P =0.001 for BLC). Furthermore, elevated BLC was associated with a 2.90-fold (95% CI: 1.03-8.17, P=0.037) increased risk of subcentimeter lung adenocarcinoma, and there was an increasing trend for BLC with the progression of subcentimeter lung adenocarcinoma. CONCLUSION Our findings demonstrated that MDC and BLC were independently associated with the significant risk of early stage lung adenocarcinoma, even in non-smokers and in stage IA patients. BLC was further identified to play a carcinogenic role in the progression of lung adenocarcinoma.