Abstract
Voltage-dependent calcium channel subunit alpha-2/delta-1 (α2δ1) has been identified as a marker of cancer stem cells in multiple malignant tumor types. However, α2δ1’s role in the prognosis of hypopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (HSCC) was not reported. In our study, ten pairs of HSCC and peritumoral normal tissues were used for immunohistochemistry assessment. And α2δ1 expression levels of 34 more HSCC samples were also evaluated, represented by the integral optic density using Image-Pro Plus. Clinicopathological associations and prognostic value of α2δ1 were analyzed. As a result, α2δ1 expression was frequently increased in HSCC tissues. Although the correlation between patients’ clinicopathological characteristics and their α2δ1 expression levels was not significant, α2δ1 expression was significantly correlated with unfavorable overall survival (OS) (P = 0.018) and progression-free survival (PFS) (P = 0.023). Univariate and multivariate cox regression analyses suggested α2δ1’s prognostic role for both OS and PFS (P = 0.013 and 0.011, respectively). This study specifically demonstrated that α2δ1 regularly increased in HSCC compared with peritumoral tissues, and α2δ1 could act as a promising prognostic marker in HSCC patients.
Highlights
Hypopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (HSCC), as a subtype of head and neck cancer, is not very common, with an incidence of less than ten cases/million people each year [1,2]
Voltage-dependent calcium channel subunit alpha-2/ delta-1 (α2δ1), encoded by CACNA2D1 gene, is a member of the α2/δ subunit family. α2/δ subunit is reported as auxiliary subunits of calcium channels located at the plasma membrane, whose function is to increase the channels’ biophysical properties [5]. α2δ1 was first confirmed by Zhao et al in liver cancer as a marker for cancer stem cells (CSCs) [6]
The overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) of 44 HSCC patients with a positive or negative α2δ1 expression were estimated by Kaplan–Meier statistical analyses
Summary
Hypopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (HSCC), as a subtype of head and neck cancer, is not very common, with an incidence of less than ten cases/million people each year [1,2]. More and more evidence suggested α2δ1’s prognostic role in patients with lung cancer and ovarian cancer [7,8,9,10]. Inspired by these studies, our laboratory is conducting a series of studies focusing on α2δ1 in head and neck cancer. This article, as a clinical histological evidence, is aimed to determine the value of α2δ1 in clinical practice
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