Prognostic relevance of MAGE-A4 tumor antigen expression in transitional cell carcinoma of the urinary bladder: a tissue microarray study.

摘要: TAAs of the MAGE family are mostly studied as targets specific immune responses. Their potential relevance tumor markers has also been underlined. We used a MAb, 57B, recognizing MAGE-A4 protein in paraffin-embedded sections, to evaluate its expression bladder cancers by employing TMA including 2,317 samples from 1,849 patients. In 2,090/2,317 cases (90.2%), immunostaining yielded interpretable results. Since for some patients more than 1 sample was available, only first biopsies (n = 1,628) were considered. expressed at significantly (p < 0.001) higher frequency squamous (25/55, 45.5%) adeno (4/15, 26.7%), sarcomatoid (4/14, 28.6%), small cell (5/20, 25%) or transitional (281/1,522, 18.5%) carcinomas. TCCs, overall positivity correlated with invasive phenotype and high grade 0.0001). Clinical data 908 TCC retrospectively evaluated, revealing that strong 57B staining highly associated decreased tumor-specific survival These suggest evaluation is useful identification groups TCCs characterized severe prognosis, thus possibly providing indications early TAA-targeted immunotherapy.