title: Overexpression of pituitary tumor transforming gene (PTTG) is associated with tumor progression and poor prognosis in patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.
abstract: Pituitary tumor transforming gene (PTTG) is a newly identified proto-oncogene that has been shown to be aberrantly overexpressed in a subset of human cancers. The aim of the present study was to examine PTTG expression in patients with esophageal squamous cell cancer (ESCC) and explore its clinical significance. PTTG protein expression was analyzed in 108 archived, paraffin-embedded primary ESCC specimens by immunohistochemistry and correlated with clinicopathological parameters and patients' outcome. Overexpression of PTTG was observed in 38.0% (41/108) of primary ESCC tissues and significantly correlated with differentiation, TNM stage, lymph node metastasis, and depth of invasion (P<0.05). Kaplan-Meier curves showed that ESCC patients with tumors expressing high levels of PTTG had substantially shorter overall survival compared with patients expressing low levels of PTTG (P=0.022, log-rank test). Cox multivariate regression analysis revealed that overexpression of PTTG was an independent prognostic factor in overall survival for ESCC patients (hazard ratio was 2.35, P=0.009). Overall, our data suggest that overexpression of PTTG may contribute to the malignant progression of ESCC and serve as a novel prognostic indicator for patients with ESCC.
authors.affiliation: Department of Thoracic Surgery, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University, Harbin 150081, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Jinfeng
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Thoracic Surgery, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University, Harbin 150081, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Yingnan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Department of Thoracic Surgery, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University, Harbin 150081, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Lantao
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Thoracic Surgery, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University, Harbin 150081, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Dayong
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.affiliation: Department of Thoracic Surgery, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University, Harbin 150081, People's Republic of China. Electronic address: jianqun_ma@163.com.
authors.forename: Jianqun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ma
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002294:Carcinoma, Squamous Cell / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology; D018450:Disease Progression; D004938:Esophageal Neoplasms / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D053208:Kaplan-Meier Estimate; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D011379:Prognosis; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D000090063:Proto-Oncogene Mas; D064249:Securin / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: C000715470:MAS1 protein, human; D000090063:Proto-Oncogene Mas; D064249:Securin; C578002:pituitary tumor-transforming protein 1, human
keywords: Esophageal squamous cell cancer; Human; Pituitary tumor transforming gene; Prognosis; Tumor progression