Clinicopathologic Significance Of Osteopontin Expression In Human Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Purpose : To observe the expression of osteopontin (OPN) and elucidate its clinicopathologic significances in human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).Methods: (1) Western Blotting was used to detect the expression of OPN in cancerous tissues and surrounding non-cancerous liver tissues from 21 HCC patients. OPN expression was evaluated as well in 12 normal liver tissues. (2) Using immunohistochemistry techniques, we measured the expression of OPN, VEGF and CD34 in 85 surgically removed primary HCCs, 10 liver cirrhosis tissues and 10 normal liver tissues. Microvessel density (MVD) was also counted by Weidner method. Furthermore, the correlation between OPN expression and clinicopathologic features was analyzed.Results: ( 1 ) Our data of Western blotting reveals that OPN positive rate was 100%, but the rate in surrounding non- cancerous liver tissues and normal liver tissues were only 80.9% (17 of 21) and 66.7% (8 of 12) respectively. The Integral Optical Density (IOD) value of OPN in HCC was significantly higher than that in the surrounding non-cancerous liver and normal liver tissues (16.12±7.76 vs 10.00±7.55 vs 1.80±2.50 , P <0.01). The osteopontin overexpression was associated closely with...