title: Angiopoietin-like protein 3 is an indicator of prognosis in esophageal cancer patients.
abstract: Angiopoietin-like protein 3 (ANGPTL3) plays an important role in angiogenesis. This study aimed to examine the protein expression of ANGPTL3, and to evaluate its clinical significance in esophageal cancer. ANGPTL3 expression was detected using immunohistochemistry in 98 pairs of esophageal cancer and adjacent non-cancerous tissues. The expression levels of ANGPTL3 in esophageal cancer tissues were significantly higher than those in adjacent noncancerous tissues (P < 0.05). No association was observed between ANGPTL3 expression and clinical features (P > 0.05). Although ANGPTL3-negative patients had longer survival time than ANGPTL3-positive patients, the difference did not reach statistical significance (P = 0.090). Stratified analysis of ANGPTL3 expression according to clinical features revealed that there was significant association between ANGPTL3 expression and overall survival among patients aged 65 years or younger, female, or with lymph node metastasis (P < 0.05). When after adjusted for clinical features, the association remained significant only in patients aged 65 years or younger (P = 0.021).Taken together, our findings provide preliminary evidence of association of ANGPTL3 expression with the prognosis of subgroups of patients with esophageal cancer.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases, Taizhou People's Hospital Taizhou, Jiangsu, China.
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: Department of Anesthesiology, Taizhou People's Hospital Taizhou, Jiangsu, China.
authors.forename: Lin
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Taizhou People's Hospital Taizhou, Jiangsu, China.
authors.forename: Wenchao
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Taizhou People's Hospital Taizhou, Jiangsu, China.
authors.forename: Weiguang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Jia
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Taizhou People's Hospital Taizhou, Jiangsu, China.
authors.forename: Fuxing
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Taizhou People's Hospital Taizhou, Jiangsu, China.
authors.forename: Xia
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Jiao
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Taizhou People's Hospital Taizhou, Jiangsu, China.
authors.forename: Xiaowei
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Taizhou People's Hospital Taizhou, Jiangsu, China.
authors.forename: Jingjing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bao
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Taizhou People's Hospital Taizhou, Jiangsu, China.
authors.forename: Hong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yu
keywords: Esophageal cancer; angiogenesis; angiopoietin-like protein 3; prognosis