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Updated: Nov 30, 2025

Establishment and Histological Analysis of Esophageal Organoids Modeling the Progression from Normal to Cancerous Tissues
Published on: May 30, 2025
A study of multinucleated giant cells in esophageal cancer
Hui Wang1, Junjie Zhou2, Jun Li3
1Provincial Key Laboratory of Molecular Pathology and Personalized Medicine, Center of Collaborative and Creative Center, Department of Pathology and Pathophysiology, Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, Guangdong, China.
Objectives:
To evaluate the occurrence, abundance, distribution, nature and clinical significance of multinucleated giant cell (MGC) in esophageal cancer.
Materials And Methods:
MGCs were examined with conventional pathology, immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescence in 107 esophageal cancer tissues. The findings were correlated to pathological diagnosis and clinical behavior of the cancers.
Results:
MGCs were identified in 31.7% (34/107) of the cases. MGCs were positive for CD11c, CD11b, CD32, CD16, HLA-DR and MMP9, and negative for CD163, CD206 and CD64 giving a molecular profile of proinflammatory M1 but not immunosuppressive M2. MGCs were significantly related to decreased lymph node metastasis (p = 0.011), low pTNM stage (p = 0.044), favorable survival (p = 0.04), squamous cell cancer type rather than other histopathological subtypes (p = 0.020) and associated to better differentiation (p = 0.063).
Conclusions:
MGCs belong to M1 macrophage and perform phagocytosis and scavenging of cancer cells that would benefit patients' survival and could serve as a prognostic marker.
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