Background/Aims@#
Cholangiocarcinoma frequently recurs even after curative resection. Expression levels of
proteins such as
epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR),
Snail,
epithelial cadherin (
E-cadherin), and
interleukin-6 (
IL-6) examined by
immunohistochemistry have been studied as potential
prognostic factors for
cholangiocarcinoma. The aim of this study was to investigate significant factors affecting the
prognosis of resectable
cholangiocarcinoma. @*
Methods@#Ninety-one
patients who underwent surgical resection at Samsung Medical Center for
cholangiocarcinoma from 1995 to 2013 were included in this study. Expression levels of Ecadherin,
Snail,
IL-6, membranous EGFR, and cytoplasmic EGFR were analyzed by
immunohistochemistry using
tissue microarray blocks made from surgical specimens. @*Results@#
Patients with high levels of membranous EGFR in
tissue microarrays had significantly shorter overall
survival (OS) and
disease-free survival (DFS) high membranous EGFR (score 0–2) 38.0 months versus low membranous EGFR (score 3) 14.4 months (p=0.008) and high membranous EGFR (score 0–2) 23.2 months versus low membranous EGFR (score 3) 6.1 months (p=0.004), respectively. On the other
hand,
E-cadherin,
Snail, cytoplasmic EGFR, and
IL-6 did not show significant
association with OS or DFS.
Patients with distant
metastasis had significantly higher
IL-6 levels than those with locoregional
recurrence (p=0.01). @*Conclusions@#This study showed that overexpression of membranous EGFR was significantly associated with shorter OS and DFS in surgically resected
bile duct cancer patients. In addition, higher
IL-6 expression was a predictive marker for
recurrence in
cholangiocarcinoma patients with distant organ
metastasis after surgical resection.