Effect of NQO1 expression level on prognosis in patients with hepatitis B virus-related hepatocellular carcinoma / 国际检验医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To study the effect of NAD(P)H:quinone oxidoreductase 1(NQO1)expression lev-el on prognosis in patients with hepatitis B virus-related hepatocellular carcinoma(HBV-HCC).Methods A total of 103 patients with HBV-HCC underwent surgical treatment in Seventh People's Hospital of Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine from March 2019 to January 2020 were enrolled.The cancer tissue and adjacent normal tissues were extracted during surgery.Immunohistochemical staining was used to detect the expression of NQO1 in tissues.The clinical and pathological data of patients were collected,and the rela-tionships between high and low expression of NQO1 and pathological characteristics were discussed.A 3-year follow-up was conducted,and the Kaplan-Meier survival curve was drawn and Log-rank test was conducted on median survival time.Then COX model analysis was used to analyze the factors affecting the prognosis of HBV-HCC patients.Results The positive rate of NQO1 in HBV-HCC tissues was 84.47％(87/103)and the high expression rate was 59.22％(61/103).The positive rate and the high expression rate of NQO1 in HBV-HCC tissues were higher than those in adjacent normal tissues(P＜0.05).There were statistically significant differences in tumor maximum diameter,number of lesions,American Joint Committee on Cancer(AJCC)staging,and vascular invasion between patients with high and low expression of NQO1(P＜0.05).The 3-year follow-up results denoted that the median survival time of patients was 37 months,and no cases were lost in follow-up.Among 103 patients,there were 34 dead cases with an overall survival rate of 66.99％(69/103)and 42 recurrence cases with a recurrence-free survival rate of 59.23％(61/103).Kaplan-Meier survival curve re-sults showed that the overall survival rate and recurrence-free survival rate were 52.46％(32/61)and 50.82％(31/61)in NQO1 high expression group,which were lower than 88.10％(37/42)and 71.43％(30/42)in NQO1 low expression group(P＜0.05).COX model analysis results showed that high expression of NQO1,tumor maximum diameter ≥5 cm,multiple lesions,AJCC stage Ⅲ to Ⅳ and vascular invasion were independ-ent risk factors for prognosis(P＜0.05).Conclusion NQO1 is highly expressed in HBV-HCC tissue,and is related to the clinicopathological characteristics of patients,so it could be used as an independent biomarker for evaluating prognosis.