Abstract: Objective To explore the expression and clinical significance of lung specificity protein X（LUNX）mRNA in peripheral blood of patients with human non-small cell lung carcinoma（NSCLC）. Methods Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction（RT-PCR） was used to measure the expression of LUNX mRNA in peripheral blood of 56 NSCLC patients and 34 patients with benign lung lesions.The relationship between LUNX mRNA expression levels and clinicopathological features was analyzed. Results ①LUNX mRNA was expressed in 58.93% of NSCLC patients，while no expression was detected in patients with benign lung lesions（P<0.05）. ②LUNX mRNA expression correlated closely with lymph node metastasis and with the degree of differentiation and clinical stage of NSCLC（P<0.05）.However，no correlation was observed between LUNX mRNA expression and other clinicopathological features such as age，sex，smoking history，tumor location or pathology type（P>0.05）. Conclusions LUNX mRNA may serve as an important molecular indicator for evaluating the occurrence and development of NSCLC patients，and it may play an important role in clinical diagnosis and therapy. 

Key words: Lung neoplasms, Lung specificity protein X （LUNX）, mRNA, Non-small cell lung carcinoma, Expression