Abstract
Osteopontin (OPN) plays an important role in the development, invasion, and metastasis of malignancies. Recently, several studies have reported that OPN enhances chemoresistance in small-cell lung cancer and breast cancer by blocking caspase-9 and caspase-3-dependent cell apoptosis. The aim of this study was to assess the value of OPN and caspase-3 for predicting tumor recurrence after curative resection in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients. We found that OPN expression increased concordantly with increasing metastatic potential in human HCC cell lines, whereas caspase-3 expression declined. In a tumor tissue microarray immunohistochemical analysis, we found that patients with higher levels of OPN and lower levels of caspase-3 had a significantly poorer prognosis than patients with lower OPN and higher caspase-3 levels. The combination of OPN and caspase-3 expression thus served as an effective prognosticator. These findings suggest that OPN alone or in combination with caspase-3 may act as an independent indicator for HCC patients after curative resection.
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