title: Prediction of radiosensitivity in human esophageal squamous cell carcinomas with heme oxygenase-1: a clinicopathological and immunohistochemical study.
abstract: The lack of an accurate system to predict the response to radiotherapy for individual cancer lesions remains a major clinical problem. The aim of this study was to establish whether heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) may be useful in predicting radiosensitivity of esophageal cancers. We evaluated biopsy specimens from 13 esophageal squamous cell cancer patients. Of these, 8 patients had tumors responding to radiotherapy, and the remainder were considered radioresistant. Expression of HO-1 was assayed using a standard immunoperoxidase technique. Clinicopathological parameters were also analyzed as factors potentially contributing to radiosensitivity. Seven of 13 patients (53.8%) showed cytoplasmic staining for HO-1 in cancer tissues. The local treatment failure rate was 0% for HO-1 positive patients, as opposed to 83.3% for HO-1-negative patients (p=0.012). In contrast, tumor size, stage, and histologic grade were not significantly different between radiotherapy responders and non-responders to radiation therapy. No relationship was observed between HO-1 expression and clinicopathologic features. The results of the current study suggest that expression of HO-1 may be a useful indicator of radiosensitivity for esophageal cancer patients.
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery II, Kumamoto University School of Medicine, Kumamoto 860-0811, Japan.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yokoyama
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mita
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Okabe
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Abe
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ogawa
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D004938:Esophageal Neoplasms / Q000201:enzymology / Q000473:pathology* / Q000532:radiotherapy*; D006419:Heme Oxygenase (Decyclizing) / Q000032:analysis*; D051547:Heme Oxygenase-1; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D008565:Membrane Proteins; D008875:Middle Aged; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D017211:Treatment Failure
chemical_list: D008565:Membrane Proteins; C496541:HMOX1 protein, human; D006419:Heme Oxygenase (Decyclizing); D051547:Heme Oxygenase-1