title: Evaluating clinical and prognostic implications of Glypican-3 in hepatocellular carcinoma.
abstract: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most deadly cancers worldwide. In patients with HCC, histopathogical differentiation is an important indicator of prognosis; however, because determination of HCC differentiation is difficult, the recently described immunohistochemical (IHC) marker glypican3 (GPC3) might assist in HCC prognostication.The goal of our study was to investigate GPC3's IHC staining pattern and define the relationship between its expression and patients' clinicopathologic features and overall survival. We retrieved clinical parameters from 101 pathologically diagnosed HCC patients' medical records and classified these patients into 4 clinical score categories (0-3) based on increasing GPC3 staining intensity and the percentage of stained tumor cells in their resection and biopsy specimens. Histopathological samples were well, moderately, and poorly differentiated in 33, 22, and 12 patients, respectively, and the GPC3 expression rate was 63%, 86%, and 92%,respectively. The median overall survival was 49.9 months (confidence interval (CI): 35.3-64.6 months) for clinical scores 0-1 and 30.7 months (CI: 19.4-41.9 months) for clinical scores 2-3. This difference was not statistically significant (P = .06) but showed a strong trend. In conclusion, a greater GPC3 expression is associated with a worse HCC prognosis and may be a promising prognostic marker.
authors.affiliation: Department of Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas, USA.
authors.forename: Ahmed Omar
authors.initials: AO
authors.lastname: Kaseb
authors.affiliation: Department of Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas, USA.
authors.forename: Manal
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hassan
authors.affiliation: Department of Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas, USA.|Department of Medical Oncology, Hacettepe University, Medical Faculty, Ankara, Turkey.
authors.forename: Sahin
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lacin
authors.affiliation: Department of Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas, USA.|Department of Clinical Oncology, Assiut University Hospital, Assiut, Egypt.
authors.forename: Reham
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Abdel-Wahab
authors.affiliation: Division of Pathology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas, USA.
authors.forename: Hesham M
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Amin
authors.affiliation: Department of Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas, USA.
authors.forename: Ahmed
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Shalaby
authors.affiliation: Department of Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas, USA.
authors.forename: Robert A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Wolff
authors.affiliation: Department of Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas, USA.
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yao
authors.affiliation: Division of Pathology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas, USA.
authors.forename: Asif
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Rashid
authors.affiliation: Ventana Medical Systems, Inc., Tucson, Arizona, USA.
authors.forename: Bharathi
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Vennapusa
authors.affiliation: Ventana Medical Systems, Inc., Tucson, Arizona, USA.
authors.forename: Janine
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Feng
authors.affiliation: Chugai Pharmaceutical Co., LTD., Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: Toshihiko
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ohtomo
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; D006528:Carcinoma, Hepatocellular / Q000737:chemistry / Q000401:mortality*; D005260:Female; D053673:Glypicans / Q000032:analysis*; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D008113:Liver Neoplasms / Q000737:chemistry / Q000401:mortality*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011379:Prognosis
chemical_list: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; C105937:GPC3 protein, human; D053673:Glypicans
keywords: glypican-3; hepatocellular carcinoma; immunohistochemistry