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High Expression of TGF-β1 Predicting Tumor Progression in Skull Base Chordomas
Junpeng Ma1, Kaibing Tian1, Liang Wang1
1Department of Neurosurgery, Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China; China National Clinical Research Center for Neurological Diseases, Beijing, China; Center of Brain Tumor, Beijing Institute for Brain Disorders, Beijing, China; Beijing Key Laboratory of Brian Tumor, Beijing, China.
Objective:
To investigate the expression characteristics and prognostic value of transforming growth factor β1 (TGF-β1) in primary skull base chordomas (SBCs).
Methods:
The mRNA expression levels of TGF-β1 were measured in 57 frozen samples from patients with primary SBCs. Clinical data collection, follow-up, correlations, and survival analyses were performed.
Results:
In the series of 57 patients (29 men and 28 women) with primary SBCs, the mean value of TGF-β1 mRNA was 1.713 with a median of 0.904. Twenty-four SBCs were soft type and 33 were hard type. The Mann-Whitney U test revealed that the expression level of TGF-β1 mRNA in hard type SBCs was significantly higher than the expression level found in the soft type (P = 0.03). The independent-samples median test suggested that the expression level of TGF-β1 mRNA in female patients' SBCs was significantly higher than that in male patients' SBCs (P = 0.01). Expression differences of TGF-β1 were not seen among different pathological subtypes, tumor blood supply, or degree of resection. The Spearman rank correlation coefficient clarified that TGF-β1 mRNA levels were not correlated with tumor diameter, preoperative Karnofsky Performance Status (KPS), postoperative KPS, follow-up KPS, age, or intraoperative blood loss. The multivariate Cox analysis revealed that pathological subtype (P = 0.008), expression level of TGF-β1 mRNA (P = 0.01), and tumor texture (P = 0.03) were all independent prognostic factors for tumor progression.
Conclusions:
SBCs in female patients and SBCs with hard texture were prone to have high TGF-β1 mRNA expression. High expression of TGF-β1, hard tumor texture, and conventional subtype were all independent risk factors for tumor progression.
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