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Medical AI Inquiry: You was designed to assist in medical decision-making based on the provided user questions. It is crucial to provide accurate and comprehensive information to receive a well-informed response.  Labels: BACKGROUND, METHODS, RESULTS. Meshes: Adult, Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Biomarkers, Tumor, Carcinoma, Hepatocellular, Disease Progression, Disease-Free Survival, Down-Regulation, Female, Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic, Hepatectomy, Humans, Intercellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins, Kaplan-Meier Estimate, Liver Neoplasms, Male, Membrane Proteins, Middle Aged, Multivariate Analysis, Neoplasm Recurrence, Local, Proportional Hazards Models, Prospective Studies, RNA, Messenger, Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction, Risk Factors, Time Factors, Treatment Outcome.
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Does loss of SFRP1 Expression be Associated with Poor Prognosis in Hepatocellular Carcinoma? Context: Secreted frizzled-related protein-1 (SFRP1) is a well-known inhibitor of the wingless type (WNT)-β-catenin signaling pathway and its inactivation plays an important role in the development and progression of various types of cancer. However, the clinical significance of SFRP1 expression in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains unknown. A total of 63 patients with HCC who underwent hepatectomy at our Institution were enrolled in this study. A quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was performed to determine the SFRP1 mRNA expression level in both the tumorous and non-tumorous tissues of HCC. The patients were divided into low and high gene-expression groups based on the SFRP1 gene expression level in their tumor tissues. We analyzed the differences in clinicopathological characteristics between these two groups of patients. The expression level of SFRP1 was significantly lower in tumor tissue than in non-tumor tissue (p<0.0001). Significant correlations were observed between a high expression of SFRP1 in tumor tissue and older than 65 years (p=0.030), tumor size less than 5 cm (p=0.011); and no vascular invasion (p=0.004). Patients with high SFRP1 expression in tumor tissue had a significantly better overall survival rate (p=0.040). However, the SFRP1 expression level was not defined as an independent risk factor for patient survival based on results of multivariate analysis.
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SFRP1 may play a role in the development and progression of HCC. Therefore, more studies are required to investigate a potential role of SFRP1 in HCC prognosis. Final Decision: yes