Involvement of β-catenin expression in hepatocellular carcinoma prognosis in a cohort of patients undergoing curative treatment.

Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma is a tumor of epithelial origin that arises from the action of different carcinogens on the hepatocytes and has a high worldwide incidence. The prognostic markers of this disease have not been completely established. Mutations in the gene encoding β-catenin are overexpressed in hepatocellular carcinoma. The objective of our study was to correlate the molecular expression of β-catenin in hepatocellular carcinoma with the already known prognostic markers.

Methods: We conducted an observational and prospective cohort study on adult patients diagnosed with hepatocellular carcinoma from whom samples of nontumor and tumor liver parenchyma were taken intraoperatively to correlate the molecular expression of β-catenin in hepatocellular carcinoma with the known prognostic markers.

Results: A total of 81 samples were collected, of which 48 met the inclusion criteria. The final sample was divided into patients with a diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma on a cirrhotic liver, corresponding to 31 patients (64.6%), and patients with a diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma on a noncirrhotic liver, corresponding to 17 patients (35.4%). We found that overexpression of β-catenin and the neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio are independently related to disease-free survival, and both overexpression and molecular repression of β-catenin are independently related.

Conclusion: Molecular overexpression of β-catenin in hepatocellular carcinoma compared with nontumor tissue is associated with worse disease-free survival, and its combination with a high neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio worsens this prognosis.