The Expression Of STAT3with The Recurrence And Metastasis In Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Objective:To detect the expression of STAT3and vascular endothelial growth factor(VEGF) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tissues and evaluate their correlations and the role of STAT3expression in HCC metastasis and prognosis.Methods:The expression of STAT3in80HCC tissues and corresponding adjacent healthy tissues and the expression of VEGF in HCC tissues were detected by immunohistochemistry. The significance of between-tissue differences was assessed by Chi-squared test. Comparative analysis of clinical data was performed to observe the relationship between STAT3expression and VEGF expression and other clinical and pathological features. The Log-Rank test and Cox regression model were used to identify factors that were associated with the prognosis.Results:1. The expression of STAT3was localized in the cytoplasm and high expressed in tumor tissue. According to the immunohistochemical scores, the high expression rate of STAT3in HCC tissue and adjacent healthy tissues were70.0%(56/80) and13.75%(11/80) respectively. The difference was statistically significant (P<0.001).2. The positive rate of VEGF in HCC tissue was61.3%(49/80).Among the56STAT3high expression patients,41were VEGF positive. The expression of STAT3and VEGF was a significant positive correlation(r=0.351, P=0.001).3. The expression of STAT3was not correlated with gender, age, tumor size, number of tumors, tumor capsular, HBsAg and AFP(P>0.05), however, STAT3expression correlated significantly and directly with vascular invasion(P=0.017) and satellite lesions(P=0.034).4. Survival analysis showed that the disease free survival of HCC patients was significantly correlated with tumor size, tumor capsular, vascular invasion, satellite lesions, VEGF expression and expression of STAT3. The1-,3-,5-year disease free survival(DFS) rates in STAT3high expressed group (58.9%,30.8%,18.4%) were significant lower than that in STAT3low expression group (91.7%,57.6%,39.4%).The difference of DFS rates was statistically significant(P=0.013). Further analysis revealed that the DFS rates of the HCC cases which were both STAT3high expressed and VEGF positive was significant lower than the other two groups(P=0.016). COX regression demonstrated that tumor size(P=0.048), vascular invasion(P=0.015), number of tumors(P=0.001) and STAT3expression(P=0.028)were significant risk factors influencing the disease-free survival of HCC.Conclusion:STAT3was highly expressed in hepatocellular carcinoma and was correlated with VEGF, vascular invasion and satellite lesions, which indicates the key effects of STAT3in HCC. The expression of STAT3was correlated with VEGF expression, vascular invasion and satellite lesions. STAT3expression is an independent risk factor to predict recurrence and disease free survival of HCC patient after radical surgery, which indicates that STAT3may be used as a new target for targeted therapy.