Prognostic impact of LAT1 and CD98 expression in cutaneous angiosarcoma

L-type amino acid transporter 1 (LAT1) and CD98 are frequently expressed in various human cancers, and closely correlated with tumor aggressiveness and survival. However, little is known about the expression of LAT1 and CD98 in cutaneous angiosarcoma. The aim of this study is to investigate the clinicopathological significance of these markers in the dismal disease. A total of 52 patients with cutaneous angiosarcoma were retrospectively reviewed. Immunohistochemical staining of tumor specimens were evaluated using anti-LAT1, CD98 and Ki-67 antibodies. The rates of high expression for LAT1 and CD98 were 56% (29/52) and 79% (41/52), respectively. The frequency of high expression for CD98 was significantly higher than that for LAT1 (p=0.021). The low expression of CD98 was significantly associated with distant metastasis (p=0.044) and was identified as a significant prognostic predictor by multivariate analysis. The expression level of LAT1 was not significantly correlated with prognosis. The low expression of CD98 is a novel biomarker for predicting poor prognosis in patients with cutaneous angiosarcoma.