Yang Sheau-Fang, Yeh Yao-Tsung, Wang Shen-Nien, Hung Sz-Chi, Chen Wan-Tzu, Huang Chu-Ho, Chai Chee-Yin
Department of Pathology, Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
Pathology. 2008 Oct;40(6):558-63. doi: 10.1080/00313020802320432.
Alteration of the suppressor of cytokine signalling-3 (SOCS-3) has been observed in certain human cancers. However, the clinical role of this short-lived protein in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is not well established. Therefore, we aimed to explore the potential role of SOCS-3 proteins in HCC.
Paraffin embedded sections from 87 HCC patients were included in this study. The expression patterns of SOCS-3 proteins were analysed using immunohistochemistry and the results were correlated with clinicopathological characteristics and overall survival of the HCC patients.
The SOCS-3 expression of HCC lesions and the adjacent non-tumourous liver tissues was significantly correlated (p = 0.035), while the SOCS-3 expression in HCC lesions was significantly and positively correlated with vascular invasion and histological grading (p = 0.034 and 0.032, respectively). The Kaplan-Meier survival curve showed that the HCC patients with high SOCS-3 expression were associated with a poor overall survival rate in the HCC subgroup with positive vascular invasion (p = 0.014). Furthermore, a multivariate Cox regression model showed that SOCS-3 expression was also a significant determinant of the overall survival for HCC (p = 0.006).
Our results indicate that altered SOCS-3 expression is associated with the overall survival in a subset of HCC patients with positive vascular invasion. Constitutive and altered SOCS-3 expression may have potential roles in a subset of HCC patients.
在某些人类癌症中已观察到细胞因子信号传导抑制因子3（SOCS-3）的改变。然而，这种短寿命蛋白在肝细胞癌（HCC）中的临床作用尚未完全明确。因此，我们旨在探讨SOCS-3蛋白在HCC中的潜在作用。
本研究纳入了87例HCC患者的石蜡包埋切片。采用免疫组织化学分析SOCS-3蛋白的表达模式，并将结果与HCC患者的临床病理特征和总生存期相关联。
HCC病变组织与相邻非肿瘤性肝组织中SOCS-3的表达显著相关（p = 0.035），而HCC病变组织中SOCS-3的表达与血管侵犯和组织学分级显著正相关（分别为p = 0.034和0.032）。Kaplan-Meier生存曲线显示，在血管侵犯阳性的HCC亚组中，SOCS-3高表达的HCC患者总生存率较差（p = 0.014）。此外，多变量Cox回归模型显示，SOCS-3表达也是HCC总生存期的一个重要决定因素（p = 0.006）。
我们的结果表明，SOCS-3表达改变与血管侵犯阳性的一部分HCC患者的总生存期相关。组成性和改变的SOCS-3表达可能在一部分HCC患者中具有潜在作用。
