Expression And Significance Of OX40and SLP-2in Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma Tissue

BackgroundEC (oesophageal cancer) is one of the ten most frequent and fatal tumoursworldwide, it accounts for the sixth most frequent cause of cancer-related deathsworldwide.There are two main histopathological types of EC: EAC (oesophagealadenocarcinoma) and ESCC (oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma) that differconsiderably in associated aetiological factors and geographical incidence. The habitof drinking very hot beverages, diets containing mycotoxins、 N-nitrosocompounds,and lacking antioxidants, and opium consumption are some of thesuggested aetiological factors. In Western countries, heavy alcohol intake andtobacco consumption are well-established main risk factors for ESCC, and maleESCC patients are3~5times more than female patients.ESCC accounts for about80%of all cases. The first symptoms of ESCC arise late during the progression of thedisease and, therefore, the diagnosis is usually done in advanced stages. This leads toan inefficient treatment and consequently to a poor prognosis. ESCC therapy isdecided according to the primary tumour dimensions and its locoregional lymphnodes involvement. Surgery is considered to be the gold standard treatment forESCC。 Besides surgery, other options including chemoradiotherapy, andimmunotherapy are applied to treat EC. However, due to the characteristic ofmalignant invasion, about50-60%of patients with esophageal cancer died of postoperative cancer metastasis，and the5-year survival rate of esophageal cancerespecially in advanced stages (III or IV) is quite disappointing.The AJCC（AmericanJoint Committee on Cancer） staging system is commonly used in the assessment ofclinical outcomes in patients with ESCC. But this system only reflects cancerprogression status at the time diagnosed, well in fact some patients may survive forquite a long time without recurrence, whereas the others with tumor in the sameTNM stage may have a more unfavorable prognosis due to tumor recurrence and/ormetastasis.Furthermore, considering of the complexity of tumor progression, theavailability of reliable markers now is substantially limited. Thus, the combination ofTNM staging with molecular markers and related clinicopathological parameters maybe a promising method of selecting the patients with high risk of postoperativerecurrence for the purpose of guiding tailored therapy. Therefore, it is warranted tofind some more effective indicators for the diagnosis and treatment of esophagealcancer.OX40is one of a recently discovered molecule that belongs to the tumornecrosis factor receptor（TNFR）superfamily which can adjust the anti-tumor immunestatus of the T cells. the overexpression of OX40was observed in tissues frompatients with melanoma, lymphoma, colorectal cancer and has a positive correlationwith prognosis. SLP-2is a novel and unusual member of the stomatin genesuperfamily, aberrant expression of SLP-2has been found in esophagus carcinoma,lung carcinoma,laryngeal carcinoma,endometrial carcinoma, and it may beassociated with the character of cancer progression including invasion and metastasis.In this study，we tested the expression of OX40and SLP-2in tissues from patientswith ESCC by immunohistochemical method and analyzed the significance of itcorrelated with clinicopathological status of the patients’.AimTo investigate the expression of OX40and SLP-2in esophageal squamous cellcarcinoma (ESSC) and to analyze the level of expression correlated withclinicopathological status of the patients. MethodsThe expression of OX40and SLP-2were detected by immunohistochemistry in94cases of ESSC tissue,31cases of adjacent atypical hyperplasia and31cases ofnormal esophageal tissue of same patients; Statistical analysis:All the data wereanalyzed by SPSS17.0statistical package. The Chi-square was used in thecomparison of positive rates; The relation of two variables was analyzed by thespearman level correlation analysis. The level of significance difference was α=0.05.Results1．The levels of OX40and SLP-2expression in ESCC (54.3%,50.0%) weresignificantly higher than that of histologically normal esophageal mucosa (3.2%,6.5%)(χ2=26.374,20.988, P<0.05). Furthermore, the expression of OX40and SLP-2was significantly associated with the TNM stage of ESCC and the lymph nodemetastasis;2．OX40expression was associated with SLP-2expression in ESCC.Conclusions1．The high expression of OX40and SLP-2may directly influence tumorinvasiveness and metastasis;2．OX40expression was associated with SLP-2expression in ESCC.