Expression of B7-H3 (CD276) in surgically resected esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.

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70 Background: B7-H3 (also known as CD276) belongs to a family of immune modulators that includes PD-1 and PD-L1 (also known as B7-H1 or CD274), which has been reported to be expressed in many carcinomas and associated with poor prognosis. In this study, we explored the relationship between B7-H3 expression and clinical background and prognosis of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) patients treated with surgery alone. Methods: The subjects of this study was the ESCC patients who received curative surgery between January 2009 and December 2014 without prior treatment, excluding T4 and M1 disease. We evaluated tumor B7-H3 expression by immunohistochemistry, which was scored to 0 (absent) if < 10% of cancer cells were stained, and 1 (weak), 2 (moderate), or 3 (strong) according to the intensity in stained cancer cells (> 10%). The B7-H3 expression of score 2 and 3 was regarded as positive. We compared the clinical characteristics and prognosis between B7-H3 positive and negative patients using log rank test and Cox proportional hazards regression analysis for adjusting the backgrounds. Results: 33 (45%) of 74 patients were positive for expression of B7-H3. Between H7-H3 (+) and (-) groups, there were difference in pathological T stage (pT1/pT2/pT3: 9/0/24 vs. 23/4/14, p < 0.01) and lymph vessel invasion (+/-: 7/26 vs. 17/24, p=0.08). There was no association between sex, age, N factor, and vascular invasion. B7-H3 (+) patients showed trend of poor recurrence free survival (RFS) and overall survival, not significant, (HR=1.41[95%CI:0.63-3.14] p=0.41 for RFS, HR=1.34[ 95%CI:0.52-3.48] p=0.55 for OS). However B7-H3 status was not a prognostic factor in multivariate analysis (HR=0.78[95% CI: 0.33-1.85] for RFS, HR=0.73 [ 95%CI:0.26-2.02] for OS). Conclusions: The expression ratio of B7-H3 was observed in 45% of the esophageal cancer, which was related with T stage and lymphatic vessel invasion but not with clinical outcomes such as RFS and OS.