Gallbladder cancers (GBCs) are highly aggressive gastrointestinal cancers with high mortality. Biological markers for the diagnosis, prognosis, and targeted therapy of GBCs have not been established.
Methods
The protein expression of Jagged1 and DLL4 in 80 adenocarcinomas (AC) and 46 squamous cell/adenosquamous carcinomas (SC/ASCs) was measured using immunohistochemistry.
Results
Positive Jagged1 and DLL4 expression in both SC/ASC and AC was significantly associated with poor differentiation, large tumor size, invasion, metastasis, and low surgical curability. Univariate Kaplan-Meier analysis showed that positive Jagged1 and DLL4 expression was significantly associated with mean survival of SC/ASC and AC patients. Multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that positive Jagged1 and DLL4 expression, as well as poor differentiation, large tumor size, high TNM stage, invasion, lymph node metastasis, and low surgical curability are independent poor prognostic factors in both SC/ASC and AC patients.
Conclusions
Positive Jagged1 and DLL4 expression is closely correlated with severe clinicopathological characteristics and poor prognosis in patients with SC/ASC and patients with AC.
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