Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2023. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jun 21, 2023; 29(23): 3658-3667
Published online Jun 21, 2023. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v29.i23.3658
SGK3 overexpression correlates with a poor prognosis in endoscopically resected superficial esophageal squamous cell neoplasia: A long-term study
Ning Xu, Long-Song Li, Hui Li, Li-Hua Zhang, Nan Zhang, Peng-Ju Wang, Ya-Xuan Cheng, Jing-Yuan Xiang, En-Qiang Linghu, Ning-Li Chai
Ning Xu, Long-Song Li, Nan Zhang, Peng-Ju Wang, Ya-Xuan Cheng, Jing-Yuan Xiang, En-Qiang Linghu, Ning-Li Chai, Senior Department of Gastroenterology, The First Medical Center of PLA General Hospital, Beijing 100853, China
Hui Li, Department of Gastroenterology, Air Force Medical Center, Beijing 100142, China
Li-Hua Zhang, Department of Pathology, The Fourth Medical Center of PLA General Hospital, Beijing 100142, China
Author contributions: Xu N and Li LS contributed equally to this manuscript; Chai NL and Xu N contributed to manuscript drafting; Xu N and Li LS wrote the manuscript; Li H, Zhang LH collected the pathological data; Xiang JY, Zhang N, Wang PJ and Cheng YX were responsible for the revision of the manuscript for significant content; Chai NL and Linghu EQ reviewed the literature; all authors issued final approval for the version to be submitted.
Supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 82070682; and Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission, China, No. Z181100001718177.
Institutional review board statement: This study was approved by the Ethics Board of the First Medical Center of PLA General Hospital (approval No. S2020-251-01).
Informed consent statement: Patients were not required to give informed consent to the study because the analysis used anonymous clinical data that were obtained after each patient agreed to treatment by written consent.
Conflict-of-interest statement: There are no conflicts of interest to declare.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Ning-Li Chai, MD, PhD, Chief Doctor, Senior Department of Gastroenterology, The First Medical Center of PLA General Hospital, No. 28 Fuxing Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100853, China. chainingli@vip.163.com
Received: February 24, 2023
Peer-review started: February 24, 2023
First decision: March 14, 2023
Revised: March 20, 2023
Accepted: May 23, 2023
Article in press: May 23, 2023
Published online: June 21, 2023
Abstract
BACKGROUND

The expression status of serum and glucocorticoid-induced protein kinase 3 (SGK3) in superficial esophageal squamous cell neoplasia (ESCN) remains unknown.

AIM

To evaluate the SGK3 overexpression rate in ESCN and its influence on the prognosis and outcomes of patients with endoscopic resection.

METHODS

A total of 92 patients who had undergone endoscopic resection for ESCN with more than 8 years of follow-up were enrolled. Immunohistochemistry was used to evaluate SGK3 expression.

RESULTS

SGK3 was overexpressed in 55 (59.8%) patients with ESCN. SGK3 overexpression showed a significant correlation with death (P = 0.031). Overall survival and disease-free survival rates were higher in the normal SGK3 expression group than in the SGK3 overexpression group (P = 0.013 and P = 0.004, respectively). Cox regression analysis models demonstrated that SGK3 overexpression was an independent predictor of poor prognosis in ESCN patients (hazard ratio 4.729; 95% confidence interval: 1.042-21.458).

CONCLUSION

SGK3 overexpression was detected in the majority of patients with endoscopically resected ESCN and was significantly associated with shortened survival. Thus, it might be a new prognostic factor for ESCN.

Keywords: Superficial esophageal squamous cell neoplasia, Serum and glucocorticoid-induced protein kinase, Endoscopic submucosal dissection, Immunohistochemistry, Overall survival

Core Tip: This study demonstrated that the expression status of serum and glucocorticoid-induced protein kinase 3 (SGK3) was high in the majority of patients with superficial esophageal squamous cell neoplasia (ESCN) and that high expression of SGK3 predicts a poor prognosis. These findings provide a new prognostic factor for ESCN.