Heat shock protein-60 expression was significantly correlated with the prognosis of lung adenocarcinoma.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of heat shock protein 60 (HSP60) in the clinical pathology of lung adenocarcinoma, and to explore whether the expression of HSP60 can act as an independent predictor for tumor relapse and prognosis after radical resection of lung adenocarcinoma. METHODS: Paraffin sections of lung adenocarcinoma tumor tissues were collected from 103 patients. Using immunohistochemistry, the expression levels of HSP60 in lung adenocarcinoma were detected. The correlations between HSP60 expression and clinicopathological parameters as well as prognosis were statistically analyzed. RESULTS: Of the 103 specimens, 70 cases (68.0%) showed a strongly positive expression of HSP60, five cases (4.8%) showed a negative expression, and 28 cases (27.2%) showed a weakly positive expression. The level of HSP60 expression was significantly correlated with TNM stage of the tumor (P = 0.015), and Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status (P = 0.027). Multivariate statistical analysis showed that patient age, pathological T stage, N stage, and HSP60 expression were independent prognostic influence on disease-free survival (P = 0.008, 0.011, 0.010, and <0.001, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: HSP60 may be a good biomarker to be applied in clinic to predict the prognosis of patients with lung adenocarcinoma.