Clinicopathologic Significance Of TM4SF5 Expression Based On Human Hepatocellular Carcinoma Tissues

Objective: Hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC)is the fifth most common cancer and ranks third in annual mortality worldwide.In China,the incidence of HCC is increasing,so the research on its occurrence and metastasis mechanism is of great significance.Recent studies have indicated that TM4SF5 plays a vital role in tumor progression and metastasis in both cell lines and mice.However,little is known about the relation in TM4SF5 expression and clinicopathologic factors.The aim of the current study was to investigate the relationship and evaluate overall survival(OS)of patients.Methods: Pathological specimens and clinical data of 98 HCC patients who under a therapy in Liaoning Cancer Hospital and Institute between January 2009 and December 2011 were collected.The expression of TM4SF5 in HCC-tissue was examined by the immunohistochemistry method.All the statistical analysis was performed by using SPSS 24.0 software package.To demonstrate the difference between HCC tissues and corresponding adjacent normal tissues,a two-tailed Student's t test was applied.Besides,all the carcinoma tissues were further divided into high-TM4SF5-expression group and low-TM4SF5-expression group.The correlation between carcinoma tissues and clinicopathologic factors was calculated by the chi-square test.Combined with the patients' survival data,Kaplan-Meier survival analysis was carried out.Results: 1.The expression of TM4SF5 in HCC tissues was significantly lower than that in corresponding adjacent normal tissues(P<0.0001).2.In HCC tissues,tumor size,vascular invasion,tumor differentiation,and TNM stage all had a statistically negative correlation with TM4SF5 expression(P<0.05).However,there were no significant associations among TM4SF5 expression and other factors.3.Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed that patients with low-TM4SF5 expression had obviously shorter OS than did those with high-TM4SF5 expression,but there was no statistical difference(P>0.05).Conclusions: 1.In HCC patients,low-TM4SF5 expression was highly associated with tumor malignant progression.2.TM4SF5 may be used as a prognostic biomarker for patients with HCC.