Membranous Expression of Heart Development Protein with EGF-like Domain 1 Is Associated with a Good Prognosis in Patients with Bladder Cancer.

Abstract

To investigate the correlation between total protein expression of heart development protein with EGF-like domain 1 (HEG1) and clinicopathological characteristics in patients with bladder cancer (BC) after radical cystectomy (RC). We retrospectively analyzed data from 110 patients who underwent RC at Kitasato University Hospital. And we prepared an anti-HEG1 monoclonal antibody W10B9, which can detect total HEG1 protein. HEG1 protein expression in tumor cells was evaluated separately for membrane and cytoplasmic staining using immunohistochemistry. Membranous HEG1 expression was associated with absent lymphovascular invasion (p < 0.01) and low pT stage (p < 0.01). Kaplan-Meier analysis revealed that the membranous HEG1-positive group had significantly long recurrence-free survival (RFS) (p < 0.01) and cancer-specific survival (p = 0.01). Expression of membranous HEG1 was identified as an independent prognostic factor for RFS (p = 0.04). There were no significant differences between cytoplasmic HEG1 expression and clinicopathologic factors including prognosis. The expression of membranous HEG1 could serve as a favorable prognostic indicator in patients with BC treated with RC.