INHBA upregulation correlates with poorer prognosis in patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.

PURPOSE

INHBA, which encodes a member of the TGF-beta superfamily of proteins, has been identified to play a critical role in different types of cancer. However, its clinical significance in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) has never been reported.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

In this study, we collected 239 ESCC paraffin-embedded specimens and measured the expression of INHBA with immunohistochemistry (IHC). The clinical and prognostic significance of INHBA expression was statistically analyzed. What is more, we conducted a meta-analysis to study the prognostic value of INHBA expression in multiple types of solid tumors.

RESULTS

The results showed that INHBA expression was observed predominantly in the cytoplasm of cells in the ESCC specimens. INHBA expression was closely correlated with N categories (=0.026). Kaplan-Meier analysis showed that ESCC patients in the low INHBA expression subgroup had significantly better prognosis than those with high INHBA level. Subgroup analysis revealed that INHBA distinguished the disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) when patients were stratified by TNM stage status and N status. Multivariate analysis results suggested that INHBA expression was an independent factor that affected OS (HR =1.679, =0.022) and DFS (HR =1.715, =0.017). In the meta-analysis, six papers with 1321 patients were included and patients with high INHBA level had worse prognosis than patients with low INHBA level (HR 2.50, 95% CI 1.75-3.57, <0.0001).

CONCLUSION

High INHBA level predicts poor prognosis in ESCC and other solid tumors. More studies are required to elucidate the role of INHBA and its clinical application in cancer settings.