Abstract
Cripto-1 may act as an independent predictor for prognosis in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, the function of Cripto-1 in HCC cells and its response to postoperative transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) in HCC patients remains unclearly. Up-regulated Cripto-1 expression boosted the ability of cell proliferation, migration and invasion in HCC cells in vitro. While opposite results were observed in HCC cells with down-regulated Cripto-1 expression. Cripto-1 expression was correlated with epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) relevant biomarkers. Furthermore, in high Cripto-1 expression patients, those with adjuvant TACE had favorable TTR and OS times. On contrary, adjuvant TACE may promote tumor recurrence but had no influence on OS time in patients with low Cripto-1 expression. In different subgroups of vascular invasion, larger tumor size or liver cirrhosis, patients with adjuvant TACE had longer TTR and OS times than those without TACE in patients with high Cripto-1 expression, while they could not obtain benefits from adjuvant TACE in patients with low-expressed Cripto-1 expression. In conclusion, Cripto-1 may be a potential prognostic factor in predicting outcome of HCC patients with TACE therapy, and combined with Cripto-1 and tumor features may be helpful to stratify patients with respect to prognosis and response to adjuvant TACE.
Highlights
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignant tumors and a leading cause of cancer-related death [1, 2]
We further explored the function of Cripto-1 in tumor cell proliferation, migration and invasion in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cells
As Cripto-1 plays an important role in tumor progression and could be an independent prognostic biomarker for HCC patients, we further explored whether the response of patients to adjuvant transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) therapy was different in different Cripto-1 expression of HCC patients
Summary
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignant tumors and a leading cause of cancer-related death [1, 2]. The prognosis of HCC patients remains unsatisfactory because of high incidence of recurrence after hepatectomy [3, 4]. It has been known that transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) is the most common method to prevent relapse and improve survival of HCC patients after surgery. It reported that only selection patients could obtain benefits from adjuvant TACE [6]. Previous studies reported that patients with large tumors or venous invasion were suggested to accept adjuvant TACE 1-2 months after resection [6,7,8]. Prognosis may be very different in HCC patients with the same clinicopathologic features, which may due to the heterogeneity of biological behavior of tumor cells [10, 11]. Screening new predictive factors are important to identify individuals most likely to www.aging-us.com benefit from TACE, and is the major objective of personalized medicine [12]
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