| Abstract: | AIM: To study the prognostic role of TAp73α, p53, proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) and apoptosis inpatients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) atter surgical tumor ablation.METHODS: Forty-seven human resected HCC tissues and 42 adjacent non-cancerous tissues were studied with 10 normal liver tissues as control group. TAp73α, p53, and PCNA were detected with Elivision immunohistochemistry.Terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase (TdT)-mediatedd-UTP-biotin nick-end labeling (TUNEL) method wasused to detect the apoptosis cells. All clinical and pathological materials were analyzed by SPSS10.0statistical package.RESULTS: TAp73α overexpressed in HCC tissues (36.2%) when compared with adjacent non-cancerous tissues (2.38%, P＜0.005) and normal liver tissues (0, P＜0.01).Mutant type p53 (mt-p53) overexpressed in HCC tissues (38.3%) when contracted with adjacent non-cancerous tissues (16.7%, P＜0.05) and normal liver tissues (0, P＜0.01). Proliferation index (PI) level in HCC tissues was significantly higher than that in adjacent non-cancerous tissues (30.34%±4.46% vs 27.88%±5.89%, t, P= 0.028). Apoptosis index (AI) level in HCC tissues was higher than that in adjacent non-cancerous tissues (8.62%±2.28% vs 7.38%±2.61%, t, P = 0.019). Expression of TAp73α was associated with lymph node metastasis and mt-p53, with r = 0.407 and 0.265, respectively. Expression of mtp53 was associated with Edmondson's stage and AFP, with r = 0.295 and -0.357, respectively. In Kaplan-Meier univariant analysis, TAp73α, AFP, TNM stage, portal vein invasion, liver membrane invasion and HBsAg correlated with prognosis (log rank, P = 0.039, 0.012, 0.002, 0.000,0.014, 0.007, respectively). Multivariant Cox regression analysis showed that TAp73α, AFP, TNM stage, portal vein invasion, liver membrane invasion and age were independent factors of prognosis. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that TAp73α can be used as a prognostic indicator of patients with HCC undergoing surgical tumor ablation. AFP, TNM, portal vein invasion, liver membrane invasion and age also have a potency of predicting the prognosis of HCC. |
