Objective: To investigate the expression and biological significance of HMGB1 and VEGF protein in tissue specimens of laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC), and further study the correlation between HMGB1 and VEGF protein.
Method: The expression of HMGB1 and VEGF protein was evaluated by immunohistochemical staining in 69 cases of LSCC specimens and 15 cases of adjacent epithelial tissue samples, and futher correlated with clinicopathologic parameters.
Result: The positive rates of HMGB1 and VEGF in LSCC tissues were significantly higher than those in adjacent non-cancerous mucosa (P < 0.01), and the expression of these two marks was closely correlated with clinical stage (P < 0.05) and metastasis (P < 0.05) in LSCC. While the expression of HMGB1 and VEGF had no significant correlations with age, sex, histological differentiation and tumor site (P > 0. 05). There was a positive correlation between the expression of HMGB1 and VEGF (P < 0.05). The Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed that patients with strong expression of HMGB1 or VEGF had poorer overall survival compared with that in patients with relative low HMGB1 or VEGF expression (P < 0.05). Multivariate COX regression analysis revealed that both lymph node metastasis and HMGB1 expression were independent prognostic factors for patients with LSCC.
Conclusion: This study demonstrated that HMGB1 and VEGF protein overexpression were closely associated with clinical stage, metastasis and poorer prognosis in patients with LSCC. Increased expression of these two proteins in LSCC suggested that HMGB1 and VEGF might play a critical role in the initiation and progression of LSCC.