OBJECTIVETo study the relationship between Chinese medical syndrome types and metabolomics of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients.

METHODSTotally 120 NSCLC patients were assigned to asthenia syndrome group and sthenia syndrome group, 60 in each group. Meanwhile, 60 cases of benign pulmonary nodules in physical examinations were recruited as the control group. Tumor tissues or benign pulmonary nodules tissues were obtained by thoracoscope. Changes of their metabolites were observed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Their differences were studied using principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least-squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA). ROC curve analysis was performed in different metabolic compounds of sthenia and asthenia syndromes groups. The area under the curve (AUC) was calculated to evaluate the sensitivity of diagnosing syndrome types.

RESULTSCompared with the control group, difference existed in 16 compounds. Of them , contents of citric acid, pyruvic acid, alanine, choline phosphate, glycerol phosphate choline, linoleic acid, oleic acid, lactic acid, inositol were more in the two tumors group than in the control group. Difference existed in 10 compounds between the sthenia syndrome group and the asthenia syndrome group. Of them, citric acid, pyruvic acid, alanine, choline phosphate, glycerol phosphate choline, lactic acid, and inositol were more in the asthenia syndrome group than in the sthenia syndrome group. Contents of valine, glucose, and glutamine were more in the sthenia syndrome group than in the asthenia syndrome group. ROC curve analyses of different compounds indicated that AUC of lactic acid and glucose was more than 0.8 (P < 0.01); AUC of inositol, choline phosphate, and glycerol phosphate choline was more than 0.7 (P < 0.01); AUC of valine, citric acid, glutamine, alanine, and pyruvic acid was more than 0.6 (P < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONSThere existed certain correlation between CM syndrome types and metabolomics of lung cancer. Lactic acid, glucose, inositol, choline phosphate, glycerol phosphate choline, valine, citric acid, glutamine, alanine, pyruvic acid were sensitive diagnostic compounds, and the first four kinds were most sensitive compounds.