High expression level of EDIL3 in HCC predicts poor prognosis of HCC patients

AIM: To determine the role of epidermal growth factor-like repeats and discoidin I-like domains 3 (EDIL3) in pathogenesis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) by investigating the EDIL3 expression in HCC and its prognostic value for HCC. METHODS: EDIL3 expression was detected in 101 HCC surgical tissue samples with immunohistochemistry method, and its relation with clinicopathologic features and prognosis of HCC patients was analyzed. RESULTS: EDIL3 was highly expressed in 48.5% of the HCC patients. Although the EDIL3 expression level did not correlate with any clinicopathological parameters, Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed that high expression level of EDIL3 resulted in a significantly poor prognosis of HCC patients (log-rank test, P = 0.010). Multivariate Cox's analysis showed that the EDIL3 expression level was a significant and independent prog-nostic parameter for the overall survival rate of HCC patients (hazard ratio = 1.978, 95% confidence interval = 1.139-3.435, P = 0.015). CONCLUSION: High expression level of EDIL3 predicts poor prognosis of HCC patients. EDIL3 may be a potential target of antiangiogenic therapy for HCC. (C) 2010 Baishideng. All rights reserved.