High Expression Of Cxcr-2Correlates With Lymph Node Metastasis And Predicts Unfavorable Prognosis In Resected Esophageal Carcinoma

Background:CXC-chemokines have been reported to play critical roles in tumor growth, angiogenesis, invasion and metastasis of various human cancers. However, expression of CXC-chemokines type2(CXCR2) and its association with clinicopathological characters and patients’ prognosis in esophageal cancer are scarcely reported.Methods:We retrospectively collected clinicopathologic characteristics of95esophageal cancer patients undergoing esophagectomies. Immunohistochemistry was used to detect the expression of CXCR2. The survival was analyzed by the Kaplan-Meier method. Univariate and multivariate analysis were then performed to determine the relationship between CXCR2and the clinical characteristics and to analyze whether CXCR2expression was a significant independent prognostic factor for esophageal cancer patients.Results:CXCR2was highly expressed in57.9%of the randomly selected specimens. The expression of CXCR2was significantly related to lymph node metastasis (P=0.044) and predicted poor overall status in operable esophageal cancer patients (P=0.012). Cox proportional hazard analysis regression analysis indicated that CXCR2expression (P=0.030) and lymphatic metastasis (P<0.001) may serve as independent prognostic markers for esophageal cancer patients.Conclusion:Our results demonstrate that CXCR2significantly correlates with lymph node metastasis and is a poor prognostic factor in resected esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.