The clinical significance and expression of MAGE-A3 in patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.

person Lan Wang The Fourth Hospital of Hebei Medical University, Shijiazhuang, China info_outline Lan Wang, Jing Zuo, Yudong Wang, Li Feng, Zhisong Fan, Long Wang, Jing Han, Xue Zhang, Jiayin Liu, Dan Li, Hui Jin

Authors person Lan Wang The Fourth Hospital of Hebei Medical University, Shijiazhuang, China info_outline Lan Wang, Jing Zuo, Yudong Wang, Li Feng, Zhisong Fan, Long Wang, Jing Han, Xue Zhang, Jiayin Liu, Dan Li, Hui Jin Organizations The Fourth Hospital of Hebei Medical University, Shijiazhuang, China, The 4th Hospital of Hebei Medical University, Shijiazhuang, China, Department of Medical Oncology, Hebei Medical University Fourth Affiliated Hospital, Shijiazhuang, China, Department of Medical Oncology, The Fourth Hospital of Hebei Medical University, Shijiazhuang, China Abstract Disclosures Research Funding No funding sources reported Background: More than half of esophageal cancer patients are diagnosed as advanced, and although immunotherapy has shown strong anti-tumor activity in esophageal cancer patients, the survival benefits are limited. Melanoma-associated antigen 3 (MAGE-A3) is a cancer testis antigen that is almost not expressed in normal tissues, but highly expressed in various malignant tumors, including esophageal cancer. MAGE-A3 has restrictive expression and good immunogenicity, making it an ideal immunotherapy target. This study aims to explore the expression and clinical significance of MAGE-A3 in esophageal squamous cell (ESCC) . Methods: 103 ESCC tissues and 77 adjacent cancerous tissues were collected, and the expression of MAGE-A3 was detected using immunohistochemistry. Furthermore, the relationship between MAGE-A3 and clinical pathological features was analyzed, and the prognostic significance of MAGE-A3 for ESCC patients was analyzed with overall survival (OS) as the endpoint. Results: The positive expression rate of MAGE-A3 in ESCC tissue was 68.0% (70/103), and the positive expression rate in adjacent tissues was 7.8% (6/77). The positive expression in ESCC was significantly higher than that in adjacent tissues. In ESCC, the expression of MAGE-A3 is associated with age, pathological grade, TNM staging, and lymph node metastasis. Both univariate and multivariate analyses showed that the expression of MAGE-A3 is an independent risk factor affecting the prognosis of ESCC patients. The high expression of MAGE-A3 predicted poor OS for ESCC patients. Conclusions: MAGE-A3 is highly expressed in ESCC and is associated with poor prognosis, and could be a potential prognostic marker and therapeutic target.