Abstract
Bladder cancer is a heterogeneous disease with outcome difficult to predict, and novel predictive biomarkers are needed. PCDH7, a member of protocadherins family, functions as tumor suppressor in several human cancers. The human PCDH7 gene is localized in chromosome 4p15, which is often inactivated in human cancers, including bladder cancer. The aim of this study was to investigate the clinical significance of PCDH7 expression in non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC). PCDH7 expression was examined using immunohistochemical staining in 199 primary NMIBC tissues and 25 normal bladder epithelial tissues. Then the relationship between PCDH7 expression and clinicopathologic features was evaluated. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis and Cox analysis was used to evaluate the correlation between PCDH7 expression and prognosis. PCDH7 expression in NMIBC tissues was significantly lower than that in normal bladder epithelial tissues (P < 0.001). Low PCDH7 expression correlated with advanced grade (P = 0.021) and larger tumor size (P = 0.044). Moreover, patients with low PCDH7 expression have shorter recurrence-free survival (P < 0.001), progression-free survival (P = 0.007) and overall survival (P = 0.011) than patients with high PCDH7 expression. Low PCDH7 expression is an independent predictor of recurrence-free survival (multivariate Cox analysis: P = 0.007), progression-free survival (multivariate Cox analysis: P = 0.014) and overall survival (multivariate Cox analysis: P = 0.004). The findings indicate that low PCDH7 expression is a potential prognostic biomarker for primary NMIBC.
Highlights
Bladder cancer is a common disease worldwide [1, 2]
The expression of PCDH7 was examined in 199 non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) tissues and 25 normal bladder epithelial tissues using immunohistochemical staining (Table 1)
PCDH7 expression was lower in NMIBC tissues than that in the controls and the difference was statistically significant (P < 0.001)
Summary
It’s a heterogeneous disease with outcome difficult to predict [3, 4]. Bladder cancer can be divided into two groups: non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) and muscle invasive bladder cancer (MIBC), based on histopathology and clinical behaviors [5]. NMIBC represents over 70% of all newly diagnosed bladder cancer cases, and approximately 90% are transitional cell carcinoma in histology. Transurethral resection of bladder tumor (TURBT) is the main treatment for NMIBC. Approximately 70% of NMIBC will relapse and 15% will progress to MIBC after TURBT www.impactjournals.com/oncotarget [6, 7]. Current risk scores based on traditional clinical and pathological parameters can provide important but limited prognostic information, and novel reliable biomarkers are needed to predict patients’ outcome [8,9,10]
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