Background/aim: To investigate the clinical and prognostic significance of MUC1 expression in patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) after radical resection.
Materials and methods: A total of 108 ESCC specimens were evaluated by reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) to detect MUC1 at the mRNA level and were evaluated by immunohistochemistry (IHC) to detect MUC1 at the protein level.
Results: MUC1 mRNA was found in 74 cases by RT-PCR and MUC1 protein expression was found by IHC in 70 cases. Both MUC1 mRNA and protein expression correlated with pT (<0.05), pN (P < 0.01), and pTNM (<0.01). The 5-year survival rates of the patients were 39.8%. In univariate analysis, the 5-year survival rate in the ESCC patients was significantly associated with pT (P < 0.01), pN (P < 0.01), pTNM stage (P < 0.01), and MUC1 mRNA and protein expression (P < 0.05). In multivariate analysis, pN and MUC1 expression were the independent relevant factors.
Conclusion: MUC1 expression can become a useful marker to predict poor prognostic factors for 5-year survival rate in patients with ESCC after radical resection.
Keywords: Esophageal cancer; MUC1; immunohistochemistry; prognosis; reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction.