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The prognostic significance of preoperative plasma levels of osteopontin in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma

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Abstract

We aimed to evaluate the prognostic value of preoperative plasma osteopontin (OPN) levels in 101 patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) who underwent liver resection. Plasma OPN levels were detected by ELISA. The association of plasma OPN levels of patients with clinicopathological characteristics, tumor recurrence, and survival was analyzed. The median plasma OPN level of patients was 176.90 ng/ml (range 13.73–780.00 ng/ml), which was significantly higher than that of 24 healthy volunteers (63.74 ng/ml, range 12.20–122.32 ng/ml). Plasma OPN levels were significantly different in patients with different numbers of tumor nodules (168.18 and 217.11 ng/ml for single and multiple nodules, respectively; P = 0.002), different Edmondson’s grades (201.24, 168.36, and 503.58 ng/ml for grades I, II, and III/IV, respectively; P = 0.015), and different TNM stages (168.16, 167.54, and 216.18 ng/ml for stages I, II, and III/IV, respectively; P = 0.016). Significantly higher plasma OPN levels were found in patients with a recurrence of HCC after resection, compared with those without recurrence (213.55 versus 153.70 ng/ml; P = 0.0013). A higher plasma OPN level was a leading independent prognostic factor for both overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) in univariate and multivariate Cox models. This suggests that the preoperative plasma OPN level can be used as a predictive marker for HCC recurrence and may be helpful to assess the prognosis of patients with HCC after surgery.

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Abbreviations

HCC:

Hepatocellular carcinoma

OPN:

Osteopontin

AFP:

Alpha fetoprotein

IQR:

Interquartile range

DFS:

Disease-free survival

OS:

Overall survival

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported in part by China National Natural Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholars (30325041) and General Program (30371378), the China National “863” R & D High-Tech Key Project (2002BA711A02-4), Foundation for Outstanding Scholars in New Era, and the Key Project from the Ministry of Education of China, Shanghai Science and Technology Developing Program (Grant No. 03DZ14024).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Liver Cancer Institute and Zhongshan Hospital, Institutes of Biomedical Science, Fudan University, 180 Feng Lin Road, Shanghai, 200032, China

    Hui Zhang, Qing-Hai Ye, Ning Ren, Lei Zhao, Yan-Fang Wang, Xin Wu, Hui-Chuan Sun, Lu Wang, Bo-Heng Zhang, Yin-Kun Liu, Zhao-You Tang & Lun-Xiu Qin

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  1. Hui Zhang
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Zhang, H., Ye, QH., Ren, N. et al. The prognostic significance of preoperative plasma levels of osteopontin in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma. J Cancer Res Clin Oncol 132, 709–717 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00432-006-0119-3

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