الفهرس 
IntroductionOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in developed countries. The poor prognosis associated with this disease is closely related to the fact that most lung cancer patients are not identified until their malignancy has reached an advanced stage. Around 80% of patients with lung cancer have stage III or IV disease at presentation, which excludes them from potentially curative surgical resection. Detection of the tumor at an earlier stage leads to an improved prognosis. Patients presenting with stage Ia non-small cell lung cancer and undergoing surgical resection have a 5 year survival of around 60%. (2)
Recent advances have added to the understanding of the morphological and molecular characteristics of pre-invasive bronchial lesions and early lung cancers. Such information is being used to provide new tests for the detection of lung cancer at early or pre-invasive stages, and for identifying targets for therapeutic intervention that can prevent progression to advanced disease.
CD15 (Leu M1, Lewis x or Stage Specific Embryonic Antigen-1 (SSEA-1)) is an embryonic carbohydrate antigen. The majorities of cancer associated carbohydrate antigens are differentiation antigens and are specifically expressed in immature cells. The retro-differentiation nature of cancer cells in the course of malignant transformation to simulate embryonic lung cells explains why they express the immature cell-specific carbohydrate antigens such as SSEA-1.