Overexpression of glucose transporter 1 in esophageal squamous cell carcinomas: a marker for poor prognosis

Abstract

Recently, Glut1 (human erythrocyte glucose transporter) expression has been demonstrated in various tumors. The aim of this study is to evaluate the prognostic utility of Glut1 expression in esophageal carcinomas. We studied Glut1 expression by immunohistochemistry of paraffin sections from 63 esophageal squamous cell carcinomas. All 63 carcinomas expressed Glut1. The mean percentage of positively stained tumor cells was 77.8% (median, 84.7%). There were two staining patterns in positive cells: 'strongly positive' and 'weakly positive'. The percentage of 'strongly positive' cells (%Glut1-SP) ranged from 0% to 95.6% (mean, 32.3%; median, 27.4%). The 5-year survival rate for patients with a high %Glut1-SP (> 30%) was significantly lower than that for patients with a low %Glut1-SP (< 30%) (P < 0.01). Statistical analysis revealed that the relative risk of death for patients with high %Glut1-SP was 2.02 times that for patients with low %Glut1-SP (P = 0.064), suggesting a possible independent predictive value for %Glut1-SP.

Clinical significance of GLUT-1 expression in patients with esophageal cancer treated with concurrent chemoradiotherapy

“…The multivariate analysis showed that GLUT-1, the number of chemotherapy courses and clinical M stage were independent prognostic factors for RFS. Previous studies found that the GLUT-1 over-expression in esophageal carcinoma is a risk factor for mortality (19,20) The results of these authors, together with our results, suggest that GLUT-1 expression is predictive of clinical outcomes in patients with esophageal carcinoma treated with CRT.…”

“…Moreover, the percentage of patients with N1 tumor was significantly higher in the high GLUT-1 expression group than that of patients with a low GLUT-1 expression. A number of studies found an association between GLUT-1 expression and tumor stage (19,20). Tohma et al found that pathological T3-4 esophageal cancers showed higher percentages of GLUT-1 strong positive cells than T1-2 cancers, and lesions exhibiting lymph node metastasis showed higher percentages of GLUT-1 strong positive cells than lesions without lymph node metastasis (19).…”

“…The over-expression of GLUT-1 in tumors was reported to be a marker for poor prognosis in colorectal, ovarian and non-small cell lung cancers (16)(17)(18). In esophageal cancer, a number of studies showed that GLUT-1 over-expression was associated with tumor aggressiveness and poor prognosis in patients with esophageal cancer treated with surgical resection (19,20). However, little information is available on the clinical significance of GLUT-1 expression in patients with esophageal cancer treated with concurrent CRT.…”

Glucose transporters 1, 3, 6, and 10 are expressed in gastric cancer and glucose transporter 3 is associated with UICC stage and survival

“…We previously reported that the expression of Glut-1 correlates with 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose uptake and hence the PET image intensity of gastric cancer [4]. Furthermore Glut-1, is a negative prognostic factor for several types of cancer, such as lung cancer, rectal cancer, breast cancer, and esophageal cancer [5][6][7][8]. Glut-1 is also associated with an inferior prognosis in gastric cancer [9].…”

Roles of facilitative glucose transporter GLUT1 in [18F]FDG positron emission tomography (PET) imaging of human diseases

“…GLUT1 is highly overexpressed in many types of cancer cells [63] including brain [64], breast [65], cervical [66], colorectal [67], cutaneous [68], endometrial [69], esophageal [70], hepatic [71], lung [72], oral [73], ovarian [74], pancreatic [75], prostate [76] and renal [77]. Because cancer cells have an altered metabolism and an increased demand for nutrients they usually show an upregulation of GLUT1 in order to provide an enhanced uptake of glucose in correlation with a greater rate of glycolysis.…”