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Original research
Clinicopathological significance of CD47 expression in hepatocellular carcinoma
  1. Hyunsung Kim,
  2. Seongsik Bang,
  3. Seungyun Jee,
  4. Seung Sam Paik,
  5. Kiseok Jang
  1. Department of Pathology, Hanyang University College of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea
  1. Correspondence to Professor Kiseok Jang, Pathology, Hanyang University College of Medicine, Seoul 04763, South Korea; medartisan{at}hanyang.ac.kr

Abstract

Aims CD47 is upregulated on the surface of various tumour cells, and it is known to inhibit the phagocytosis of tumour cells by macrophages. Immunotherapy that targets CD47 has demonstrated success in preclinical trials and is now under clinical investigation for both solid and haematological malignancies. However, data regarding CD47 expression in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tissue and its correlation with clinical outcomes in patients with HCC remain limited. Here, we investigated the clinicopathological features associated with CD47 expression in HCC.

Methods CD47 expression was evaluated by immunohistochemistry in tissue microarray sections containing 166 HCC tissues. CD47 expression was considered positive if 10% or more tumour cells were stained.

Results CD47 expression was observed in 36 (21.7%) of 166 HCC tissues and was significantly associated with frequent large vessel invasion, advanced American Joint Committee on Cancer stage and higher Ki-67 proliferation index. In the survival analyses, CD47 expression was not associated with recurrence-free survival or overall survival in total patients with HCC. However, in patients who received surgical resection without any adjuvant treatment, CD47 expression was associated with shorter recurrence-free survival.

Conclusions CD47 expression was significantly associated with adverse pathological features and poor clinical outcomes in patients with HCC who did not receive adjuvant treatment.

  • liver neoplasms
  • carcinoma
  • immunohistochemistry

https://doi.org/10.1136/jclinpath-2020-206611

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    Footnotes

    • Handling editor Dhirendra Govender.

    • Contributors KJ built the conception and designed the experiments. HK, SB and SJ contributed to acquisition of clinicopathological data and construction of tissue microarray. HK performed the experiments. HK and KJ interpreted the results. SSP assisted with interpretation of data. HK drafted manuscript. KJ and SSP supervised the study. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

    • Funding This work was supported by grants from Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF), funded by the Ministry of Education (NRF-2018R1D1A1B07048798).

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent for publication Not required.

    • Ethics approval Institutional Review Board of Hanyang University Hospital approved this study (HYUH 2015-12-017). Waiver of informed consent for this study was obtained from IRB.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Data availability statement All data relevant to the study are included in the article.