Quantitative analysis of APC promoter methylation in hepatocellular carcinoma and its prognostic implications

The present study aimed to quantitatively determine the aberrant methylation signal of the adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) gene in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), and to evaluate whether hypermethylation of the APC promoter could be a prognostic biomarker for HCC. Taqman probe-based quantitative methylation-specific polymerase chain reaction was performed to identify the APC promoter methylation levels in 57 HCC and corresponding non-tumorous liver tissues. In the present study, the methylation level of the APC promoter was upregulated by 4.51-fold in the HCC tissues compared with the non-cancerous tissues (P=0.0003). With regard to the clinicopathological data, the methylation level of the APC promoter in the HCC samples was higher in the patients with larger tumors when the cut-off was set at 4 cm (P=0.0008), and in the older patients when the cut-off was set at 60 years old (P=0.0438). However, the methylation status in the HCC samples appeared not to affect the overall patient survival rate (P=0.1684). The findings of the present study showed that APC promoter hypermethylation accumulates during the development of HCC, but that it may not be a promising prognostic biomarker for HCC.