Elevated expression of Rad51 is correlated with decreased survival in resectable esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.

BACKGROUND

Rad51 plays a critical role in homologous recombination and correlates with many human malignancies. However, its role and clinical significance in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) has not been clarified. The purpose of this study was to explore the clinicopathological correlation and prognostic significance of Rad51 expression in a group of ESCC patients.

METHODS

We evaluated Rad51 expression in 230 surgically resected ESCC specimens by immunochemistry using tissue microarray and correlated with clinicopathological features including post-operation survival.

RESULTS

There was no significant correlation between Rad51 expression and clinicopathological characteristics in terms of age, sex, tumor location, histologic grade, T, N categories, and TNM stage. The Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed that high expression of Rad51 indicated a poorer disease free survival (DFS) of ESCC patients compared with the patients with low expression of Rad51 (P = 0.031), similar result also shown in overall survival (OS) analysis (P = 0.034). Furthermore, Rad51 expression could stratify node positive patients in DFS (P = 0.021) and OS (P = 0.035). Multivariate analysis confirmed the Rad51 expression was an independent prognostic factor for DFS (HR = 1.603, P = 0.013) and OS (HR = 1.555, P = 0.021) of ESCC patients.

CONCLUSIONS

Elevated expression of Rad51 is associated with poor prognosis for resectable ESCC patients.