Detection Of Liver Tumor Stem Cells In Primary Hepatocellular Carcinoma And Its Clinical Significance

Cancer stem cells is a new theory which appears in recent years about the occurrence and development of tumor. According to this theory, the factor that cause the occurrence and keep the development of tumor is a group of cells called "Cancer stem cells". These cells are very few in the tumor tissue, but they have the features of liver cells such as self-renewal, differentiation and anti-treatment, and they can affect the progression, recurrence and metastasis of the tumor. Only by eliminating these cells can we cure cancer. CD133 is a new indicators of liver cancer stem cells; Serum alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) test is one common and important diagnostic method of liver cancer so far, it is also expressed in liver cancer stem cells. This article studied the expression and significance of CD133 and AFP in hepatocellular carcinoma and investigate their relationship with prognosis.OBJECTIVE:The expression of CD133 and AFP in hepatocellular carcinoma and their effect on the survival curve after surgery.METHODS:Collection of 88 liver tumor tissues that are removed through the tumor resection for hepatocellular carcinoma in the Pancreatic and splenic department of Shandong Provincial Hospital from April 2003 to May 2005. Select the three-step method of SABC of immunohistochemistry to detect the expression of CD133 and AFP in liver tumor tissues, to investigate the relationship between the positive expression of CD133 and AFP and clinical pathology (select X2 test, P<0.05 has statistical significance), and comparatively analyze the effect of the positive expression of CD133 and AFP to the one-year survival rate and disease free survival rate and five-year survival rate and disease free survival rate after surgery (select the Kaplan-Meier survival curve).RESULTS:1.45 patients (51.13%) of 88 cases had the positive expression of CD133.2.57 patients (64.77%) of 88 cases had the positive expression of AFP.3.37 cases had the positive expression of both CD133 and AFP, P<0.05, the positive expression of CD133 and AFP had positive correlation.4. Positive expression of CD133 and AFP was unrelated to patient's age, gender, alcohol consumption, serum HbsAg, liver cirrhosis and tumor size(P>0.05), but related to the number of tumors, serum AFP level, differentiation and tumor stage(P<0.05).5. Kaplan-Meier survival curve showed that patients with positive expression of CD133 and AFP had shorter one-year and five-year free survival time than that with negative expression(P<0.05), and patients with positive expression of CD133 and AFP had shorter five-year survival time than that with negative expression(P<0.05), but no difference in one-year survival time(P>0.05).CONCLUSIONS:The proteins of CD133 and AFP were proved to be expressed in hepatocellular carcinoma. The two relevant have the properties of cancer stem cell, and their expression are related to the malignancy of tumor and postoperative survival rate. Therefore, they can be used as the indicators of prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma.