L1 cell adhesion molecule overexpression in hepatocellular carcinoma associates with advanced tumor progression and poor patient survival

One-hundred and thirty HCC patients who had undergone curative liver resection were selected and immunohistochemistry, Western blotting, and quantitative real time polymerase chain reaction (Q-PCR) were performed to analyze L1CAM expression in the respective tumors.Immunohistochemistry, Western blotting, and Q-PCR consistently confirmed the overexpression of L1CAM in HCC tissues compared with their adjacent nonneoplastic tissues at both protein and gene level (both P <0.01). Additionally, the high expression of L1CAM was significantly associated with advanced tumor stage (P？=？0.02) and advanced tumor grade (P？=？0.03), respectively. Moreover, HCC patients with high L1CAM expression were significantly associated with lower 5-year overall survival (P <0.01) and lower 5-year disease-free survival (P <0.01), respectively. The Cox proportional hazards model further showed that L1CAM over-expression was an independent poor prognostic factor for both 5-year disease-free survival (P？=？0.02) and 5-year overall survival (P？=？0.008) in HCC.Our data suggest for the first time that L1CAM expression in HCC was significantly correlated with the advanced tumor progression and was an independent poor prognostic factor for both overall survival and disease-free survival in patients with HCC.The virtual slide(s) for this article can be found here: http://www.diagnosticpathology.diagnomx.eu/vs/1970024872761542 webciteHepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most frequent human malignancy worldwide. Especially in China, it has become a major cause of cancer-related death [1]. There are many risk factors associated with HCC disease etiology, such as hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, genetic makeup and environmental exposure [2]. The main features of HCC are fast infiltrating growth, early metastasis, high-grade malignancy, and poor therapeutic efficacy. Although surgical resection is the best method to ensure long-term survival for HCC patients, frequent r