Objective: To explore prognostic factors and the expression of glypican-3, hepatocyte antigen (HEP), alpha-fetoprotein (AFP), CD34 and CD10 in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and their prognostic value.
Methods: Clinicopathologic data were analyzed in 375 cases of HCC, in which 80 cases with follow-up were examined by immunohistochemical staining to detect the expression of glypican-3, HEP, AFP, CD34 and CD10 proteins. The relationship between the proteins expression and clinicopathologic features was also evaluated.
Results: Tumor number (P = 0.000), tumor size (P = 0.025), tumor differentiation (P = 0.001) and vessel invasion (P = 0.000) were closely related to prognosis of HCC patients; the expression of glypican-3 (66/80,82.5%; P = 0.002), HEP (64/80,80.0%; P = 0.021), AFP (38/80,47.5%; P = 0.014) and CD10 (28/80,35.0%; P = 0.002) was significantly related to tumor differentiation; that of glypican-3 was significantly correlated with tumor number and presence of satellite nodules (P = 0.028) and that of AFP and CD10 was significantly correlated with portal vein thrombi (P = 0.000, P = 0.010). On Kaplan-Meier regression analysis, both low expression of HEP and high expression of AFP were closely related to poor prognosis.
Conclusions: Tumor number, size, differentiation and vessel invasion were important factors affecting the prognosis of patients with HCC. HEP and AFP have prognostic significance in HCC.