SNAI2 and TWIST1 in lymph node progression in early stages of NSCLC patients

Abstract Lymph node metastasis is an important prognosis factor in non‐small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) in lymph node progression in the early stages of NSCLC. We studied a retrospective cohort of 160 consecutive surgically treated NSCLC patients with available frozen tumor samples for expression of EMT markers (CDH1, CTNNB1, CDH2, and VIMENTIN), inducers (TGFB1, c‐MET, and CAIX), and transcription factors (EMT‐TF: SNAI1, SNAI2, ZEB1, TWIST1, and TWIST2). Partial EMT was more frequent in N1‐2 (N+) vs N0 patients (P