State Key Laboratory of Cancer Biology, Department of Digestive Surgery, Xijing Hospital of Digestive Diseases, tFourth Military Medical University, Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, China.
Dis Esophagus. 2012 Jan;25(1):72-80. doi: 10.1111/j.1442-2050.2011.01211.x. Epub 2011 Sep 2.
Lymphatic metastasis is the predominant cause of the low overall survival of patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC), as there are no faithful methods available predicting early metastasis. Recent studies suggest an effect of podoplanin expression on metastatic spreading to lymph nodes. The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of podoplanin expression on lymphatic metastasis and tumor cells, and to find the relationship between podoplanin expression and prognosis of patients with ESCC. We evaluated the level of podoplanin expression on tumor cells and the lymphatic vessel density change of tumor mass compared with normal tissue from the same patient through D2-40 immunohistochemistry staining, and analyzed associations between these two variables and various clinicopathologic parameters individually or conjunctively. There was an association between podoplanin expression and the frequency of lymph node metastases. In 45 patients (80%), podoplanin was expressed on the tumor cells. Twenty-one patients (37.5%) showed high levels of expression. The 5-year disease-free survival rate (5%) for patients with high levels of podoplanin expression was significantly lower (P < 0.001) than for patients with low and moderate expression of podoplanin (54% and 27%, respectively). We concluded that podoplanin is expressed frequently in ESCC, and that the expression of podoplanin on cancer cells, lymphatics, or both is correlated with lymphatic metastasis and clinical outcome.
淋巴转移是导致食管鳞癌（ESCC）患者总体生存率低的主要原因，因为目前尚无可靠的方法可以预测早期转移。最近的研究表明，波形蛋白表达对淋巴结转移的扩散有影响。本研究旨在探讨波形蛋白表达对淋巴转移和肿瘤细胞的影响，并寻找波形蛋白表达与 ESCC 患者预后的关系。我们通过 D2-40 免疫组织化学染色，评估肿瘤细胞中波形蛋白的表达水平和肿瘤组织中淋巴管密度的变化与同一患者正常组织之间的差异，并分别或联合分析这些两个变量与各种临床病理参数之间的关系。波形蛋白表达与淋巴结转移的频率有关。在 45 例患者（80%）中，肿瘤细胞表达了波形蛋白。21 例（37.5%）患者表达水平较高。高表达组的 5 年无病生存率（5%）明显低于低表达组（54%）和中表达组（27%）（P<0.001）。我们得出结论，波形蛋白在 ESCC 中经常表达，肿瘤细胞、淋巴管或两者的波形蛋白表达与淋巴转移和临床结果相关。
