Key Words

rameters for galectin-3 decreased in advanced pT and pN stages at a statistically signifi cant level. The number of positive cases was considerably smaller among the cases with small cell lung cancer than in the group with non-small-cell lung cancer, among which adenocarcino-mas fi gured prominently with the exception of galec-tin-1 expression. Kaplan-Meier computations revealed that the survival rate of patients with galectin-3-binding or galectin-1-expressing tumors was signifi cantly poorer than that of the negative cases. In the multivariate calcu-lations of survival lymph node metastases (p ! 0.0001), histological type (p = 0.003), galectin-3-binding capacity (p = 0.01), galectin-3 expression (p = 0.03) and pT status (p = 0.003) proved to be independent prognostic factors, not correlated with the pN stage. Conclusion: The ex-pression and the capacity to bind the adhesion/growth regulatory galectin-3 is defi ned as an unfavorable prog-nostic factor not correlated with the pTN stage