Clinicopathologic and prognostic significance of CD24 in gallbladder carcinoma

CD24, a small cell surface protein, has emerged as a novel oncogene and prognostic factor for poor outcomes in many human cancers. However, the association of CD24 expression pattern in gallbladder carcinoma with patients' survival has not been reported. To shed light on this problem, we performed an analysis on the relationship between CD24 expression and prognostic parameters in gallbladder carcinoma. CD24 expression was examined immunohistochemically on paraffin-embedded tissue specimens from 207 patients who underwent surgical treatment for gallbladder carcinoma in the period between January 2004 and May 2009. CD24 positive expression was found in 78.7% (163/207) of the tumor samples. It tended to be associated positively with tumor histological grades and pT stages. Kaplan-Meier curves showed that CD24 positive expression was significantly related to decreased overall survival (p < 0.01). Multivariate analysis, including CD24 expression, pT stage, tumor grade, and resection margin involvement, showed that CD24 positive expression was an independent prognostic marker in gallbladder carcinoma (p = 0.02; relative risk = 1.6). Our data demonstrate for the first time that CD24 is an important marker of malignancy and poor prognosis in gallbladder carcinoma. Its detection combined with cancerous staging may increase the ability of investigators to predict the prognosis of patients with gallbladder carcinoma. Furthermore, the CD24 antigen represents an attractive target for specific therapies with monoclonal antibodies in patients with CD24-overexpressing gallbladder carcinoma, so the detection of CD24 may help clinicians select patients likely to benefit from novel molecular therapies.