Division of General Surgery, Department of Surgery, Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital and Chang Gung University, College of Medicine, Kaohsiung 83301, Taiwan.
World J Gastroenterol. 2011 Nov 14;17(42):4675-81. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v17.i42.4675.
To determine the apoptosis pathway in residual viable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tissues following transarterial embolization (TAE).
Ten patients with HCC who received surgical resection after TAE were enrolled in the study group, and 24 patients with HCC who received surgical resection only served as the control group. In the study group, we measured the changes in tumor size and α fetoprotein (AFP) levels after TAE. All tissue samples were taken from the residual tumors. The expression of various apoptotic proteins was evaluated via immunoblotting procedures. The results were analyzed using a Student's t test.
Tumor size and the AFP level decreased by 46.2% and 55.3% after TAE, respectively. There was no significant difference detected for the Bcl-2/Bax ratio or the cleaved caspase-9 expression levels in either group. However, extrinsic apoptopic pathway-related expression of Fas and cleaved caspase-8 expression were significantly higher in the study group than in the control group (P < 0.05). In addition, cleaved caspase-3 expression in the study group was higher (1.62-fold) than in control group (P < 0.05).
TAE is an effective palliative therapy that decreases tumor size and AFP levels via an increase in extrinsic apoptosis pathway in patients with unresectable HCC.
确定经动脉栓塞（TAE）后残余存活肝细胞癌（HCC）组织中的细胞凋亡途径。
研究组纳入 10 例接受 TAE 后手术切除的 HCC 患者，对照组纳入 24 例仅接受手术切除的 HCC 患者。在研究组中，我们测量 TAE 后肿瘤大小和α胎蛋白（AFP）水平的变化。所有组织样本均取自残余肿瘤。通过免疫印迹程序评估各种凋亡蛋白的表达。采用Student's t 检验进行分析。
TAE 后肿瘤大小和 AFP 水平分别降低了 46.2%和 55.3%。两组的 Bcl-2/Bax 比值或 cleaved caspase-9 表达水平均无显著差异。然而，研究组中 Fas 和 cleaved caspase-8 的外源性凋亡途径相关表达明显高于对照组（P<0.05）。此外，研究组的 cleaved caspase-3 表达（1.62 倍）高于对照组（P<0.05）。
TAE 是一种有效的姑息治疗方法，通过增加不可切除 HCC 患者的外源性凋亡途径，可降低肿瘤大小和 AFP 水平。
