You have to be registered and logged in for purchasing articles.

Abstract

Clinicopathological and Prognostic Implications of Arginase Expression in Hepatocellular Carcinoma by Huahui Mao, Weili Gao, Guochun Lu, Fu Fang, Lisong Teng

Background: To investigate the correlation of Arg-1 expression with clinicopathologic factors and prognosis of HCC patients, including recurrence and survival rate.
Methods: We examined the expression of Arg-1 in HCC by immunohistochemistry and studied its correlation with a series of clinicopathologic features and prognositic parameters of patients with HCC.
Results: We found patients with higher Arg-1 expression showed less aggressive features based on less portal vein invasion (χ2 = 10.794, df = 1, p = 0.001), less microvessel invasion (χ2 = 4.247, df = 1, p = 0.039), lower TNM stage (χ2 = 4.992, df = 1, p = 0.025), and better differentiated histology (χ2 = 24.155, df = 1, p < 0.001). Among them, portal vein invasion (p = 0.024, 95% CI 1.010 - 2.321), microvessel invasion (p = 0.043, 95% CI 1.014 - 3.225), histology (p = 0.001, 95% CI 2.230 - 5.934), and TNM stage (p = 0.001, 95% CI 1.364 - 3.401) have been suggested as prognostic factors in HCC patients. Furthermore, the enhanced expression of Arg-1 in HCC appears to be associated with a lower recurrence rate and prolonged overall survival.
Conclusions: These results suggest that Arg-1 may play a tumor suppressive role in HCC and could be a new, promising prognostic biomarker for HCC patients.

DOI: 10.7754/Clin.Lab.2012.120210