Cancer stem cell markers correlate with early recurrence and survival in hepatocellular carcinoma

Abstract

Expression of CD133, CD90, and EpCAM CSC markers may be linked to HCC tumor onset and/or progression. In addition, EpCAM expression is associated with shorter survival time, while CD90 expression is associated with early HCC recurrence.

Immunohistochemical expression and clinical significance of suggested stem cell markers in hepatocellular carcinoma

“…20,21 The prognosis of patients with EpCAM-negative HCC is considered to be better than that of those with EpCAM-positive HCC. 11,[14][15][16]20,21 Although EpCAM expression was not found to be an independent predictor of survival in patients with HCC in this study, EpCAM expression was found to be associated with well-known unfavorable prognostic factors in HCC. Thus, the use of EpCAM expression as an unfavorable prognostic factor of HCC is reasonable.…”

“…15,21 The proportion of tissues expressing EpCAM in this study was a little higher than in earlier series, which reported EpCAM in 15.9%-48.7% of HCCs. [15][16][17][20][21][22][23] have demonstrated that EpCAM expression was observed more often in HCC patients with HBV than in those with other etiologies, and the immunoreactivity of EpCAM has been found in up to 78% of HCC patients with HBV. The high proportion of HCC patients with HBV (74%) examined in this study might be a possible explanation for the higher EpCAMpositive rate.…”

“…Only two of 82 HCC specimens showed positive staining for CD133 and CD56, suggesting that CD133 and CD56 expression is rare in paraffin-embedded HCC tissues. It has been reported that 0%-88% 11,15,16,25 of human HCC tissue samples express CD133, and the expression of which is negatively correlated with presence of HBV. 26 Several IHC studies have demonstrated CD56 expression in 0%-9.7% of human HCCs.…”

“…[3][4][5][6] The expression of several proposed CSC markers in HCC has been reported and might prove to be useful for predicting the prognosis of HCC patients. 11,[14][15][16] However, little is known about the relationships between the IHC expression of CSC markers in paraffin-embedded tissue sections and clinicopathologic factors or clinical outcomes of HCC.…”

“…[14][15][16]18 EpCAM has been validated as a marker of stem cells in the liver, and EpCAM-positive HCC is likely to have originated from hepatic stem cells. 8,15,16,19 In the present study, we observed that EpCAM expression significantly correlated with tumor progression factors of HCC, such as elevated AFP level, vascular invasion, and high tumor grade. These findings are in agreement with previous studies showing that expression level of EpCAM correlates with de-differentiation 11 and vascular invasion and is associated with the high AFP level in HCC.…”