Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jun 21, 2015; 21(23): 7254-7263
Published online Jun 21, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i23.7254
High level of intercellular adhesion molecule-1 affects prognosis of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma
Peng-Peng Zhu, Sheng-Guang Yuan, Yan Liao, Li-Ling Qin, Wei-Jia Liao
Peng-Peng Zhu, Sheng-Guang Yuan, Li-Ling Qin, Wei-Jia Liao, Laboratory of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery, Affiliated Hospital of Guilin Medical University, Guilin 541001, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China
Peng-Peng Zhu, Sheng-Guang Yuan, Li-Ling Qin, Wei-Jia Liao, Affiliated Hospital of Guilin Medical University, Guangxi Key Laboratory of Molecular Medicine in Liver Injury and Repair, Guilin 541001, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China
Yan Liao, Disease Prevention and Control Center of Guilin, Guilin 541001, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China
Author contributions: Liao WJ designed and supervised the experiments; Zhu PP and Yuan SG performed the research and analyzed the data and figures; Liao Y and Qin LL provided the technical and material support; Liao WJ wrote the paper; all the authors read the manuscript and approved its submission.
Supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 81260328 and No. 81372163; and the Open Fund of Guangxi Key Laboratory of Early Prevention in Regional High Incidence Cancer, No. GK2014-TKF02.
Ethics approval: The study was reviewed and approved by the Affiliated Hospital of Guilin Medical University Institutional Review Board.
Informed consent: All study participants, or their legal guardian, provided informed written consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest: The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Data sharing: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (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: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Dr. Wei-Jia Liao, Affiliated Hospital of Guilin Medical University, Guangxi Key Laboratory of Molecular Medicine in Liver Injury and Repair, No. 15 Lequn Road, Xiufeng District, Guilin 541001, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China. liao288@163.com
Telephone: +86-773-2810411 Fax: +86-773-2822703
Received: December 6, 2014
Peer-review started: December 8, 2014
First decision: January 27, 2015
Revised: February 6, 2015
Accepted: March 19, 2015
Article in press: March 19, 2015
Published online: June 21, 2015
Processing time: 196 Days and 1.9 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Our previous research and other studies found that intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) is overexpressed in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and might be a biomarker for HCC diagnosis. However, the correlation between ICAM-1 and clinicopathological features and its prognostic significance for HCC have not been explored. In this paper, we validate that ICAM-1 promotes HCC metastasis and that high serum ICAM-1 is significantly associated with alpha-fetoprotein, clinical tumor-node-metastasis stage, portal vein tumor thrombus, distant metastasis, recurrence, disease-free survival and overall survival. ICAM-1 may be a promising serological biomarker for HCC diagnosis and prognosis and may provide a useful reference for the prediction of intra- and extrahepatic metastasis.