Expression And Clinical Significance Of Decoy Receptor 3 Protein And Proliferation Cell Nuclear Antigen In Human Gastric Carcinoma

Objective: To investigate the relationship between the expression of decoy receptor 3(DcR3),proliferation cell nuclear antigen (Ki-67) and the clinicopathological parameters in human gastric carcinoma , and evaluate the clinical significance of DcR3 in predicating the prognosis. Methods: The expression of DcR3 and Ki-67 was examined by immunohistochemistry S-P staining method in a series of 98 human primary gastric carcinomas and 56 cases of nomal tissues adjacent to tumor. Multiple clinicopathological factors and prognosis were analyzed according to their relation with the expression of DcR3 and Ki-67. Results: 1. The positive rates of expression of DcR3 and Ki-67 were 55.1%(54/98), 68.4%(67/98) in human gastric carcinoma respectively. No expression of DcR3 and Ki-67 was detected in the 56 cases normal tissues adjacent to tumor. 2. DcR3 expression rate in highly differentiated tumors was significantly lower than that in poorly differentiated (39.0% vs 79.5%, P<0.01). The DcR3 expression level was significantly positively correlated with lymph node metastasis and TNM staging ( P<0.01), but there was no significant difference in DcR3 and other clinicopathological features such as sex, age, tumor status and invasion depth(P>0.05).3. The expression of Ki-67 was strongly associated with tumor differentiation status, infiltration depth and TNM classification (P<0.01) , no correlation was found with sex, age, tumor position and lymph node metastasis(P>0.05).4. Expression of DcR3 was closely positively correlated with that of Ki-67 in human gastric carcinomas(P<0.01).5. The five-year survival rate of patients was significantly higher in DcR3 negative group than in DcR3 positive group (61.3% vs 29.6%, P <0.01). Multivariate analysis with the Cox proportional hazards modal showed that DcR3 expression was not independent prognostic factor for the patients with gastric carcinoma after a resection. Conclusions:(1) DcR3 expression can be highly found in gastric carcinoma,but not in the normal tissues adjacent to the tumor.(2) The abnormal expression of DcR3 and Ki-67 may play important roles in the tumorigenesis and progression of gastric carcinoma .The protein examination of DcR3 and Ki-67 may be important in evalualing the tumor differentiation, invasion depth,lymph node metastasis and TNM staging of human gastric carcinoma. (3) DcR3, its overexpression being correlaion with poor prognosis of gastric cancer patients, is not an independent predictor for gastric carcinoma.