Overexpression of LBH is associated with poor prognosis in human hepatocellular carcinoma

Abstract

PurposeLimb-bud and heart (LBH) levels are correlated with adverse survival in several malignancies; however, their significance in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains unclear. The objective of this study was to determine the association between LBH status and clinical outcomes.MethodsWe selected 226 patients with HCC who were treated surgically between 2003 and 2010 at a single academic center. Immunohistochemistry (IHC) was used to detect the protein expression of LBH in HCC samples. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis, Spearman’s rank correlation, Kaplan–Meier plots, and the Cox proportional hazards regression model were used to analyze the data.ResultsA high expression of LBH was detected in 20 (8.8%) of 226 HCC samples. Correlation analysis demonstrated that LBH in HCC was significantly correlated with aspartate aminotransferase (AST)/alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels and clinical stages (P<0.05). In the Kaplan–Meier analysis, the mean survival time of patients with low levels of LBH was longer than that for those with high levels of LBH (P<0.05). The 3-year overall survival rate was 20% for patients with HCC and high levels of LBH versus 67% for patients with HCC and low levels of LBH. In the multivariate analysis, AST/ALT level, clinical stage, tumor relapse, and the level of LBH were the independent prognostic factors for overall survival (P<0.05).ConclusionOverexpression of LBH might contribute to the development and progression of HCC. LBH could be a novel prognostic marker for HCC.

<p>Prognostic value of aspartate transaminase to alanine transaminase (De Ritis) ratio in solid tumors: a pooled analysis of 9,400 patients</p>

“…The 18 included studies published between 2011 and 2019 provided an overall sample size of 9,400, with a range of 74–2,965. The six studies were carried out in People’s Republic of China (including Taiwan),21,22,24,26,33,34 followed by Japan (n=4),20,23,28,31 Korea (n=5),17,18,27,29,30 Turkey (n=2),19,25 and the USA (n=1).32 Regarding cancer type, 6 studies reported renal cell cancer (RCC),18,19,22,23,30,32 4 reported liver cancer with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC),21,26,33,34 3 reported urinary tract urothelial carcinoma (UTUC),27–29 2 reported PC,20,24 2 reported bladder cancer,17,25 and 1 reported head and neck cancer.31 Considering survival endpoint, 16 studies focused on OS,17–23,25–27,29–34 8 focused on CSS,17–19,23,25,27,29,30 and 5 focused on RFS 24,27,28,30,34. All the 18 studies were written in English.…”

Elevated limb-bud and heart development (LBH) expression indicates poor prognosis and promotes gastric cancer cell proliferation and invasion via upregulating Integrin/FAK/Akt pathway

“…In a study by Liu, overexpression of LBH was shown to lead to G1/S phase arrest in nasopharyngeal carcinoma and act as a transcriptional cofactor of NF-κB (Liu et al, 2015). Results from studies by Chen have confirmed that LBH predicted poor prognosis in hepatocellular carcinoma (Chen et al, 2018). Moreover, our team found that LBH is downregulated and predicts better overall survival (OS) outcome in lung adenocarcinoma (Deng et al, 2018).…”

“…They observed that LBH acts as a target gene for the Wnt pathway to inhibit mammary epithelial differentiation and promote Wnt-induced tumorigenesis (Lindley et al, 2015). Since then, LBH has received attention as a new tumor-associated gene, and its role in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (Liu et al, 2015), hepatocellular carcinoma (Chen et al, 2018), prostate cancer (Liu et al, 2018), and lung adenocarcinoma (Deng et al, 2018) has been studied. In a study by Liu, overexpression of LBH was shown to lead to G1/S phase arrest in nasopharyngeal carcinoma and act as a transcriptional cofactor of NF-κB (Liu et al, 2015).…”

Limb‑bud and heart as a novel biomarker for gastric intestinal type adenocarcinoma

“…Lindley et al (26) demonstrated that LBH is an essential regulatory factor for the expansion and maintenance of basal multifunctional breast stem cells (MaSC), acting upstream of the ΔNp63 oncogene to promote a multipotent basal MaSC state and repress luminal differentiation. In another previous study, Chen et al (27) demonstrated that high levels of LBH expression could be detected in 20/226 (8.8%) of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) samples. The mean survival time was prolonged in patients with HCC who exhibited low LBH expression compared with those with high expression.…”