title: High expression of heat shock protein 105 predicts a favorable prognosis for patients with urinary bladder cancer treated with radical cystectomy.
abstract: Heat shock protein 105 (Hsp105) is one of the cancer/testis antigens, which is overexpressed in a variety of cancer cells, including urinary bladder cancer, and has been investigated as a target molecule for immunotherapy due to its immunogenicity. In this study, we assessed the expression of Hsp105 in primary bladder cancer samples from 84 patients treated with radical cystectomy, using immunohistochemical analysis, and investigated its correlation with clinicopathological characteristics and cancer-specific survival. The immunoreactivity of Hsp105 expression was evaluated as a score of 0-3, according to the intensity of the signal. The Hsp105 expression was high (score 2 or 3) in 31 cases and low (score 0 or 1) in 53 cases; however, it was not significantly correlated with age, nuclear grade, pathological tumor stage and previous intravesical Bacillus Calmette-Guérin immunotherapy. Female gender, lymphovascular invasion and lymph node metastasis were associated with low Hsp105 scores, although the differences were not statistically significant (P=0.071, 0.061 and 0.175, respectively). However, a high Hsp105 score was significantly associated with a favorable prognosis (P=0.017) and was identified as an independent prognostic factor by multivariate analysis (P=0.032; hazard ratio, 2.34). These findings suggested that the expression of Hsp105 may be a novel indicator of a favorable prognosis in bladder cancer.
authors.affiliation: Department of Urology, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 1138655;
authors.forename: Taketo
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kawai
authors.affiliation: Department of Urology, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 1138655; ; Department of Urology, Mitsui Memorial Hospital, Tokyo 1018643;
authors.forename: Yutaka
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Enomoto
authors.affiliation: Departments of Pathology, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 1138655;
authors.forename: Teppei
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Morikawa
authors.affiliation: Immunotherapeutics, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 1138655;
authors.forename: Hirokazu
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Matsushita
authors.affiliation: Department of Urology, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 1138655;
authors.forename: Haruki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kume
authors.affiliation: Departments of Pathology, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 1138655;
authors.forename: Masashi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Fukayama
authors.affiliation: Technical Affairs Division, Kyodo Byori Inc., Kobe, Hyogo 6512112, Japan.
authors.forename: Hirotsugu
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yamaguchi
authors.affiliation: Immunotherapeutics, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 1138655;
authors.forename: Kazuhiro
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kakimi
authors.affiliation: Department of Urology, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 1138655;
authors.forename: Yukio
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Homma
keywords: bladder cancer; heat shock protein 105; immunohistochemistry; prognostic marker