BACKGROUND: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the fifth most common malignancy in China, and China’s annual number of new cases accounts for about 45% of the world total. This research was aimed to study the expression of TBX3 protein in HCC and exploring its clinical significance.

MATERIAL AND METHODS: We collected tumor tissues and adjacent non-tumoral tissues of 174 patients with HCC undergoing surgical resection. The expression of TBX3 protein in different tissues and cell lines in vitro (LO2, HHL-5, MHC97-L, MHC97-H) was detected by immunohistochemistry or Western blotting, and the relationship between TBX3 expression and clinical data of patients with HCC was analyzed.

RESULTS: The expression of TBX3 protein in HCC was significantly correlated with histological grade, tumor size, cancer cell metastasis, hepatitis B surface antigen, and the expression of Ki-67 in tumor tissues (P<0.05), and it was positively correlated with serum AFP level (r=0.766, P<0.05). The expression of TBX3 increased with increased histological grade in HCC (P<0.05). Cox regression analysis showed that the expression of TBX3 protein in HCC was an independent risk factor for prognosis (OR=0.524, 95% CI=0.283-0.964). The 5-year survival rate of patients with HCC that highly expressed TBX3 protein was 20.83%, which was significantly lower than the 40.20% rate in patients with low expression (P<0.05).

CONCLUSIONS: The expression of TBX3 in HCC patients undergoing surgical resection is high, and its expression increases with the degree of tumor differentiation. It is related to the metastasis of tumor cells and is positively correlated with the serum level of AFP and may affect the survival time of HCC patients undergoing surgical resection.

Keywords: Liver Neoplasms