Correlation of high expression of TIM-3 with survival time in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma patients

Abstract

Objective To investigate the expression levels of T cell immunoglobulin domain and mucin domain protein-3(TIM-3)and its clinical values in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma(ESCC) in China. Methods The expression of TIM-3 was calculated by the immunohistochemical assay method from the postoperative pathological specimens of 61 patients with ESCC; χ2 test was used to evaluate the relationship between TIM-3 and the clinicopathological parameters, while survival analysis was figured out by Kaplan Meier method, as well as univariate analysis and Cox's proportional hazards model were used to analyze the expression of TIM-3 and its clinical prognostic value. Results The proportion of high staining intensity of TIM-3 was 24.59% in all tumor samples. Tim-3 expression in ESCC cells was correlated with the depth of tumor invasion. According to the Kaplan-Meier method for survival analysis: compared with TIM-3 low expression group, TIM3 high expression group had bad disease-specific survival (χ2=4.630, P=0.031). Multivariate analysis showed that the expression level of TIM-3 was not the independent indicators of the prognosis of patients with ESCC. Conclusions High TIM-3 expression level is correlated with the poor prognosis of patients with ESCC. TIM-3 may play a major role in the ECSS carcinogenesis. Key words: T cell immunoglobulin domain and mucin domain protein-3; Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma; Immune check point