Influences of p53 Mutation, Expression of bc12, Ki67 Index and Expression of E-Cadherin on the Prognosis of the Esophageal Cancer

p53 변이, bc12 발현, Ki67 인덱스, E-cadherin의 발현 등이 식도암의 예후에 미치는 영향에 대한 연구

Background and objectives; Esophageal cancer is one of the most malignant tumors and has a poor prognosis. Many clinical studies have been tried for improving prognosis of esophageal cancer. Some clinical studies used molecular markers as the predictor of prognosis & the indicator for the choice of multimodality treatments. We investigated the relationship between some molecular markers, including p53 mutation, expression of bc12, Ki67 index, expression of E-Cadherin and the prognosis of esophageal cancer, Materials and Method; The materials used in this study were the tumor specimens from 72 esophageal cancer patients who underwent esophagectomy from 1987 to 2002 in our institute. The mutation of p53, expression of bc12, Ki67 index, and expression of E-cadherin were examined by using the tissue array and immunohistochemical staining method. The patients were subgrouped into higher Ki67 index group if the index was higher than 30. The patients were also subgrouped into grade 1(>90%), grade 2(50∼90%), grade 3 (10∼50%), and grade 4(<10%) according to the rate of E-Cadherin expression. We studied the relationship between the rates of immunohistochemical staining and the survival rate. Results: Seventy two tumor specimens from 72 patients were studied. (mean age ; 59.6 years, male female = 69 : 3) The histologic type of the specimens was all squamous cell carcinoma. The patient's number of stage IIA, IIB, and Ⅳ was 30, 37, and 7 respectively, Thirty patients were alive and overall 5 year-survival rate was 28%. The mutation of p53 was shown in 54.2% of the patients. Five year survival rates of negative and positive groups were 29% and 28% respectively.(p=0.4) Expression of bc12 gene was found in 13.9% of the specimens. Five year survival rates of negative and positive groups were 30% and 21%.(p=0.3) Higher Ki67 index was correlated to poorer differentiation.(p=0.05) Five year survival rates of higher and lower groups of Ki67 index were 47% and 30%.(p=0.15) Higher expression rate of E-Cadherin showed better differentiation.(p=0.04). However we couldn't find any survival differences between these 4 groups.(p=0.23) Conclusion; We could not find any molecular markers meaningful in the prognosis of esophageal cancer patients. We just found the tumor markers correlated to the differentiation of esophageal cancer. However, we knew that we need further study with some more samples to stratify other important prognostic factors of esophageal cancer.