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Background: Lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in men and the second leading cause in women worldwide. It is becoming increasingly clear that estrogen and estrogen receptors are involved in the pathogenesis and development of lung cancer. However, observational studies on the prognostic role of estrogen receptor β (ERβ) in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) are controversial. Methods: To clarify the impact of ERβ in NSCLC survival, we performed this meta-analysis that included eligible studies. The combined hazard ratios (HR) and their corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated in terms of overall survival. Results: A total of eleven studies with 3,300 patients were evaluable for this meta-analysis. Our results suggested that ERβ overexpression had no relationship on survival of patients with NSCLC, the HR (95% CI) was 1.000 (0.954–1.047) overall. Moreover, there was no heterogeneity between the studies. Conclusions: ERβ overexpression indicates no relationship of prognosis for patients with NSCLC.

Background With the release of the National Lung Screening Trial results, the detection of peripheral pulmonary lesions (PPLs) is likely to increase. Computed tomography (CT)-guided percutaneous transthoracic needle biopsy (PTNB) and radial probe endobronchial ultrasound (r-EBUS)-guided transbronchial lung biopsy (TBLB) are recommended for tissue diagnosis of PPLs. Methods A systematic review of published literature evaluating the accuracy of r-EBUS-TBLB and CT-PTNB for the diagnosis of PPLs was performed to determine point sensitivity and specificity, and to construct a summary receiver-operating characteristic curve. Results This review included 31 publications dealing with EBUS-TBLB and 14 publications dealing with CT-PTNB for the diagnosis of PPLs. EBUS-TBLB had point sensitivity of 0.69 (95% CI: 0.67-0.71) for the diagnosis of peripheral lung cancer (PLC), which was lower than the sensitivity of CT-PTNB (0.94, 95% CI: 0.94-0.95). However, the complication rates observed with EBUS-TBLB were lower than those reported for CT-PTNB. Conclusions This meta-analysis showed that EBUS-TBLB is a safe and relatively accurate tool in the investigation of PLC. Although the yield remains lower than that of CT-PTNB, the procedural risks are lower.

NCAPG2 is a component of the condensin II complex and contributes to chromosome segregation via microtubule–kinetochore attachment during mitosis. It is well known that NCAPG2 plays a critical role in cell mitosis; however, the role of altered NCAPG2 expression and its transcriptional regulatory function in cancer development remains mostly unknown. Here, for the first time we reported that NCAPG2 was evidently increased in non‐small cell lung cancer tissues compared to adjacent normal lung tissues. Clinicopathological data analysis showed that NCAPG2 overexpression was significantly correlated with lymph node metastasis and pathologic‐Tumour Nodes Metastasen stages, and was an independent prognostic factor in lung adenocarcinoma patients. Moreover, siRNA‐mediated knockdown of NCAPG2 could inhibit tumour cell growth of lung adenocarcinoma cells (A549 and H1299) in vitro and could significantly lead to cell cycle arrest in the G2 phase. Furthermore, we found that NCAPG2 silencing significantly decreased the expression levels of G2/M phase cell cycle‐related protein expressions (Cyclin B1, Cdc2) and increased the expression levels of p27 and p21 through Western blot analysis. Taken together, we demonstrated that increased NCAPG2 expression could regulate cell proliferation and identified as a poor prognostic biomarker in lung adenocarcinoma.