Prognostic significance of the local expression of interleukin-12 in patients with advanced gastric cancer.
BACKGROUND
Interleukin (IL)-12 is a heterodimeric cytokine that exhibits potent antitumor and antimetastatic activities. Very few studies have so far investigated the local expression of L-12 in tumor specimens of gastric cancer. The purpose of this study was to investigate the immunohistochemical expression of IL-12 in patients with gastric cancer.


METHODS
IL-12 was immunohistochemically stained using monoclonal antihuman IL-12 antibody (1-1A4) in surgical specimens of 117 gastric cancer patients. The IL-12-positive cell density was calculated. The relationships among the IL-12-positive cell density, clinicopathological factors and 5-year survival rate were evaluated.


RESULTS
Among the patients (n=117), the 5-year survival rate after surgery was not statistically different between the patients with high and low IL-12 positive cell-density. However, in the patients with advanced gastric cancer (n=85), those with a high IL-12-positive cell density showed a significantly better prognosis in comparison with those with a low IL-12-positive cell density (p=0.0104). A multivariate analysis indicated that the IL-12-positive cell density and TNM stage are significant prognostic factors.


CONCLUSIONS
IL-12-positive cell density may be a significant independent prognostic factor in surgical specimens of advanced gastric cancer.
Nagashima
Nobuo
N
Department of Surgery 1, University of Occupational and Environmental Health, Kita-Kyushu City, Japan.
Nakayama
Yoshifumi
Y
Inoue
Yuzuru
Y
Nagata
Jun
J
Matsumoto
Kentaro
K
Minagawa
Noritaka
N
Katsuki
Takefumi
T
Shibao
Kazunori
K
Hirata
Keiji
K
Sako
Tatsuhiko
T
Hamada
Tetsuo
T
Nagata
Naoki
N
D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D018664:Interleukin-12 / Q000096:biosynthesis*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D011379:Prognosis; D013274:Stomach Neoplasms / Q000276:immunology* / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery
D018664:Interleukin-12