Intratumoral Expression of IL-17 and Its Prognostic Role in Gastric Adenocarcinoma Patients

• Main Author: Ju-gao Chen, Jian-chuan Xia, Xiao-ting Liang, Ke Pan, Wei Wang, Lin Lv, Jing-jing Zhao, Qi-jing Wang, Yong-qiang Li, Shi-ping Chen, Jia He, Li-xi Huang, Miao-la Ke, Yi-bing Chen, Hai-qing Ma, Zhen-wu Zeng, Zhi-wei Zhou, Alfred E Chang, Qiao Li
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Ivyspring International Publisher 2011-01-01
• Series: International Journal of Biological Sciences
• Online Access: http://www.biolsci.org/v07p0053.htm

<p>In this study, we characterized the intratumoral expression of IL-17 and CD8⁺ TILs in gastric adenocarcinoma patients after resection and determined the correlation between the survival probability of gastric adenocarcinoma patients and the expression of IL-17 in tumor. Expression of IL-17 and CD8 was assessed by immunohistochemistry, and the prognostic effects of intratumoral IL-17 expression and CD8⁺ TILs were evaluated by Cox regression and Kaplan-Meier analysis. Immunohistochemical detection revealed the presence of IL-17 and CD8⁺ cells in gastric adenocarcinoma tissue samples (90.6%, 174 out of 192 patients and 96.9%, 186 out of 192 patients, respectively). We have also found that intratumoral IL-17 expression was significantly correlated with age (<i>p</i>=0.004) and that the number of CD8⁺TILs was significantly correlated with UICC staging (<i>p</i>=0.012) and the depth of tumor invasion (<i>p</i>=0.022). The five-year overall survival probability among patients intratumorally expressing higher levels of IL-17 was significantly better than those expressing lower levels of IL-17 (<i>p</i>=0.036). Multivariate Cox proportional hazard analyses revealed that intratumoral IL-17 expression (HR: 0.521; 95% CI: 0.329-0.823; <i>p</i>=0.005) was an independent factor affecting the five-year overall survival probability. We conclude that low levels of intratumoral IL-17 expression may indicate poor prognosis in gastric adenocarcinoma patients.</p>