Staining of interleukin-10 predicts clinical outcome in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma.
BACKGROUND
Interleukin-10 (IL-10) has been implicated as an important modulator of lymphoid cells, and its sequence is homologous to an open reading frame in the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) genome. Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is a representative tumor related to EBV infection.


METHODS
The authors investigated the expression of IL-10 in 21 primary NPCs by using an immunohistochemical approach to examine its prognostic significance.


RESULTS
IL-10 staining was positive in 12 of 21 primary NPCs (57%). There was no association between IL-10 expression and gender, tumor size, the occurrence of lymph node metastases, clinical stage, or recurrence. However, there was a significant difference in overall survival between the negative expression and positive expression of IL-10 (P = 0.0348). Although 87.5% of the IL-10 negative group survived for 5 years, only 15.6% of IL-10 positive patients survived for that length of time by the Kaplan-Meier method. IL-10 expression was significant as an independent prognostic indicator of overall survival by multivariate analysis using the Cox proportional hazards model (odds ratio, 26.64; P = 0.0019).


CONCLUSIONS
The results imply that expression of IL-10 is a prognostic factor in patients with NPC and may prove valuable in selecting patients with NPC who are candidates for aggressive therapy.
Fujieda
S
S
Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Fukui Medical University, Yoshida, Japan.
Lee
K
K
Sunaga
H
H
Tsuzuki
H
H
Ikawa
H
H
Fan
G K
GK
Imanaka
M
M
Takenaka
H
H
Saito
H
H
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D016753:Interleukin-10 / Q000032:analysis*; D008207:Lymphatic Metastasis; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009303:Nasopharyngeal Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality* / Q000628:therapy; D011379:Prognosis; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D012737:Sex Factors; D015996:Survival Rate
D016753:Interleukin-10