Clinicopathologic significance of HMGA2 expression's correlation with prognosis of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma after Ivor Lewis esophagectomy

BACKGROUND: The main reason for the commonly poor prognosis of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) after surgery is the high recurrence rate. For patients at high risk of recurrence, it may be of value to seek indicators of recurrence, which would be useful for further treatment. High-mobility group A2 (HMGA2) is a small non-histone chromosomal protein, highly expressed in many epithelial tissue malignant tumors and closely correlated with the occurrence, development and prognosis of tumor. Its aberrant expression in various cancers was detected, while its expression and significance in ESCC is still unclear. METHODS: We enrolled 127 patients with ESCC who had undergone Ivor-Lewis esophagectomy. The expression profile of HMGA2 was examined by immunohistochemistry. RESULTS:The result showed that the high expression of HMGA2 correlated with a higher T stage (P=0.007), lower differentiation degree (P=0.008), lymph node metastasis (P<0.01), recurrence status (P=0.005) and TNM stage (P=0.006). The Cox regression analysis showed that the TNM stage (P=0.006), differentiation degree (P=0.003) and high HIVIGA2 expression (P=0.048) were independent risk factors of survival. CONCLUSIONS: Our data indicated that HMGA2 expression level associates with key clinicopathological features and could be an effective biomarker to predict the prognosis of ESCC.