title: Significance of relaxin-2 expression in hepatocellular carcinoma: relation with clinicopathological parameters.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  A number of putative roles, including the modulation of tumor growth, neovascularization, metastasis and oncogenic progression, have been correlated to relaxin-2 overexpression. However, the clinical significance of relaxin-2 expression in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains unclear. The aim of this study was to investigate the expression of relaxin-2 in HCC and determine its correlation with tumor progression and prognosis.
  
  
  METHODS
  180 HCC patients who had undergone curative liver resection were selected and immunohistochemistry was performed to analyze relaxin-2 expression in the respective tumors.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Immunohistochemistry confirmed relaxin-2 overexpression in HCC tissues compared with their adjacent nonneoplastic tissues (p < 0.01). Additionally, immunostaining showed more relaxin-2 positive cells in the higher tumor grade (III) than in the lower tumor stage (I, II; p = 0.026). Moreover, HCC patients with high relaxin-2 expression were significantly associated with lower 5-year overall survival (p < 0.01) and lower 5-year disease-free survival (p < 0.01), respectively. Furthermore, immunostaining showed more relaxin-2 positive cells in the tumor recurrence (ETR) patients than non-ETR patients (p = 0.001). The Cox proportional hazards model further showed that relaxin-2 was an independent poor prognostic factor for both 5-year disease-free survival (hazards ratio [HR] = 1.872, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.18-5.146, p = 0.023) and 5-year overall survival (HR = 3.637, CI = 1.443-7.15, p = 0.001) in HCC.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our data suggest for the first time that the overexpression of relaxin-2 protein in HCC tissues is of predictive value on tumor progression and poor prognosis.
authors: Department of Clinical Laboratory, the Affiliated Hospital of Medical College, Qingdao University, Qingdao, Shangdong, R.P. China.
authors: H-Z
authors: HZ
authors: Pan
authors: A-B
authors: AB
authors: Dong
authors: L
authors: L
authors: Wang
authors: S-S
authors: SS
authors: Tan
authors: Q
authors: Q
authors: Yang
authors: X-Y
authors: XY
authors: Tong
authors: J
authors: J
authors: Liang
authors: J-R
authors: JR
authors: Wang
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D006528:Carcinoma, Hepatocellular / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D008113:Liver Neoplasms / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009364:Neoplasm Recurrence, Local; D011379:Prognosis; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D012065:Relaxin / Q000032:analysis*
chemical_list: C095068:RLN2 protein, human; D012065:Relaxin