Department of Surgery and Centre for Cancer Research, LKS Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, China.
Eur J Cancer. 2011 Oct;47(15):2299-305. doi: 10.1016/j.ejca.2011.05.032. Epub 2011 Jun 15.
Tumour recurrence and metastasis are pressing issues of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients who receive surgical treatments. Matrix metalloproteinase-12 (MMP-12), previously identified from our animal model, is involved in tumour invasiveness of rat hepatoma. We aimed to investigate the significance and prognostic value of MMP-12 expression in human HCC. MMP-12 mRNA level of 139 pairs of tumour and non-tumour liver tissues of HCC patients after hepatectomy were investigated by quantitative real-time RT-PCR. MMP-12 mRNA was significantly elevated in tumour liver tissues of HCC patients compared to non-tumour and normal liver tissues. By comparing paired tumour and non-tumour liver tissues, MMP-12 mRNA was overexpressed in 58% of tumour tissue of HCC patients. Overexpression of MMP-12 mRNA was significantly correlated with presence of venous infiltration (p=0.004), high serum AFP level (p=0.012), early tumour recurrence (p=0.018) and poor overall survival (p=0.02) of HCC patients. Moreover, MMP-12 mRNA was an independent factor in predicting the 1- and 3-year overall survival of HCC patients after hepatectomy. Our data demonstrated that MMP-12 mRNA may be a valuable prognostic marker for both overall survival and tumour recurrence of HCC patients after liver resection.
肿瘤复发和转移是接受手术治疗的肝细胞癌（HCC）患者面临的紧迫问题。基质金属蛋白酶-12（MMP-12）是我们从动物模型中鉴定出的一种与大鼠肝癌侵袭性相关的蛋白。我们旨在研究 MMP-12 在人 HCC 中的表达的意义和预后价值。通过定量实时 RT-PCR 检测 139 对 HCC 患者肝切除术后肿瘤和非肿瘤肝组织的 MMP-12 mRNA 水平。与非肿瘤和正常肝组织相比，HCC 患者肿瘤肝组织中的 MMP-12 mRNA 水平显著升高。通过比较配对的肿瘤和非肿瘤肝组织，发现 MMP-12 mRNA 在 HCC 患者肿瘤组织中的过表达率为 58%。MMP-12 mRNA 的过表达与静脉浸润（p=0.004）、高血清 AFP 水平（p=0.012）、早期肿瘤复发（p=0.018）和 HCC 患者总体生存不良（p=0.02）显著相关。此外，MMP-12 mRNA 是预测 HCC 患者肝切除术后 1 年和 3 年总生存率的独立因素。我们的数据表明，MMP-12 mRNA 可能是预测 HCC 患者肝切除术后总体生存率和肿瘤复发的有价值的预后标志物。
