Objective: To investigate the feasibility for judging the postoperative lymph node metastasis of esophagus cancer patients with pN0 stage by detecting the protein expression of metastasis-associated protein 1 (MTA1).
Methods: Immunohistochemistry was used to detect the expression of MTA1 protein in lymph node of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) with pN0 stage.
Results: (1) There were no significant differences in age, gender and differentiation among the lymph node metastasis (P > 0.05), but not with pT stage (P < 0.05; χ(2) = 13.29). (2) There were no significant differences among the expression of MTA1 protein and age, gender and differentiation (P > 0.05), but not with differentiation and pT stage (P < 0.05; χ(2) = 18.61). Both stages pT1b and pT3 had higher expression of MTA1 protein than stage pT1a (P < 0.05; χ(2) = 25.54). (3) The curve of lymph node metastasis showed that the patients with no/lower MTA1 protein expression had a lower metastasis rate than those a higher MTA1 protein expression (P < 0.05; χ(2) = 16.63). (4) The results of multivariate analysis confirmed that T status and MTA1 protein over-expression were independent risk factors for pN0 stage ESCC.
Conclusion: Detecting MTA1 protein expression is helpful for judging the lymph node metastasis of ESCC patients with pN0 stage. And its over-expression may used as a guide in the decision-making of postoperative adjuvant therapy.