Ishida Koichiro, Iwahashi Makoto, Nakamori Mikihito, Nakamura Masaki, Yokoyama Shozo, Iida Takeshi, Naka Teiji, Nakamura Yasushi, Yamaue Hiroki
Second Department of Surgery, Wakayama Medical University, School of Medicine, Wakayama 641-8510, Japan.
Int J Oncol. 2009 Apr;34(4):915-22. doi: 10.3892/ijo_00000217.
Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) is one of the biological malignant tumors. Once a tumor invades the submucosa, an incidence of lymph node (LN) metastases is very high, thus resulting in poor survival. Recently, chemokines have been reported to play an important role in organ-specific metastases in several malignancies. In particular, CCR7 has been reported to be associated with LN metastases by immunohistochemistry. However, there have been no studies of quantitative analyses of CCR7 mRNA expression on cancer cells. In this study, we investigated the clinical significance of the expression of CCR7 in the establishment of LN metastases of esophageal SCC. A series of 78 patients with esophageal SCC who underwent esophagectomy were consecutively selected. The expression of CCR7 mRNA from tumor tissue samples was analyzed by quantitative real-time reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR), and that from cancer cell samples collected using laser microdissection system was analyzed by qRT-PCR. Immunohistochemical staining of CCR7 was also performed. Although CCR7 mRNA expression in tumor tissues demonstrated no association with the LN metastases, that in cancer cells correlated with LN metastases (p<0.05) due to the fact that not only cancer cells but also infiltrating lymphocytes expressed CCR7 in tumor tissue. Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed a high CCR7 expression in cancer cells to be an independent predictive factor for LN metastases. These results suggested that CCR7 expression might play an important role in establishing LN metastases in patients with esophageal SCC.
食管鳞状细胞癌（SCC）是一种恶性肿瘤。一旦肿瘤侵犯黏膜下层，淋巴结（LN）转移的发生率就会很高，从而导致生存率低下。最近，据报道趋化因子在几种恶性肿瘤的器官特异性转移中起重要作用。特别是，通过免疫组织化学已报道CCR7与LN转移有关。然而，尚未有对癌细胞上CCR7 mRNA表达进行定量分析的研究。在本研究中，我们调查了CCR7表达在食管SCC的LN转移形成中的临床意义。连续选择了78例行食管切除术的食管SCC患者。通过定量实时逆转录聚合酶链反应（qRT-PCR）分析肿瘤组织样本中CCR7 mRNA的表达，并通过qRT-PCR分析使用激光显微切割系统收集的癌细胞样本中CCR7 mRNA的表达。还进行了CCR7的免疫组织化学染色。虽然肿瘤组织中CCR7 mRNA表达与LN转移无关，但癌细胞中的CCR7 mRNA表达与LN转移相关（p<0.05），因为不仅癌细胞而且浸润淋巴细胞在肿瘤组织中都表达CCR7。多因素逻辑回归分析显示癌细胞中CCR7高表达是LN转移的独立预测因素。这些结果表明CCR7表达可能在食管SCC患者的LN转移形成中起重要作用。
