Immunohistochemical expression of CXCL5 as a valuable prognostic marker in urinary bladder urothelial carcinoma

Abstract

Abstract Background and aim Urothelial carcinoma (UC) is the most common histologic subtype of bladder carcinoma. Detection of novel biomarkers that could predict UC progression and prognosis represents an active focus of research in the oncology field. CXCL5 is a member of the CXC chemokine family. It has been implicated in progression of many cancers, but its prognostic value in UC remains unclear. This study aimed to evaluate the immunohistochemical expression of CXCL5 in noninvasive and invasive UC of the urinary bladder and to correlate its expression with different studied clinicopathological characteristics to evaluate its potential prognostic value. Patients and methods A total of 60 specimens of primary invasive and noninvasive urothelial bladder carcinomas were included in this study. Paraffin-embedded tissue blocks were prepared from the specimens. Two serial tissue sections were obtained from each specimen. One tissue section was stained by hematoxylin and eosin stain and examined to confirm diagnosis, histologic subtype, tumor grade, muscle invasion, and presence or absence of bilharzial infestation, and the second tissue section was subjected to immunohistochemical using anti-human CXCL5 antibody. Results Studying the association between CXCL5 expression and different clinicopathologic parameters in urothelial bladder carcinoma revealed a statistically significant correlation between its expression and poor prognostic indicators. CXCL5 expression is significantly correlated with poorly differentiated (P=0.025), advanced stage (P=0.039), and invasive tumors (P=0.002). Conclusion The current study revealed that CXCL5 overexpression in urothelial bladder carcinoma is strongly associated with adverse prognostic factors. CXCL5 might be considered as a reliable biomarker in predicting tumor progression and poor prognosis.