Li et al. BMC Cancer (2018) 18:356 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12885-018-4301-1 RESEARCH ARTICLE Open Access The alterations of cytokeratin and vimentin protein expressions in primary esophageal spindle cell carcinoma Xin Min Li1, Xin Song1, Xue Ke Zhao1, Shou Jia Hu1, Rang Cheng1, Shuang Lv1,2, Dan Feng Du1,3, Xiang Yang Zhang1, Jian Liang Lu1,2, Jian Wei Ku1,4, Dong Yun Zhang1,5, Yao Zhang6, Zong Min Fan1 and Li Dong Wang1* Abstract Background: The accumulated evidence has indicated the diagnostic role of cytokeratin (CK) and vimentin protein immunoassay in primary esophageal spindle cell carcinoma (PESC), which is a rare malignant tumor with epithelial and spindle components. However, it is largely unknown for the expression of CK and vimentin in pathological changes and prognosis of PESC. Methods: Eighty-two PESC patients were identified from the esophageal and gastric cardia cancer database established by Henan Key Laboratory for Esophageal Cancer Research of Zhengzhou University. We retrospectively evaluated CK and vimentin protein expressions in PESC. Clinicopathological features were examined by means of univariate and multivariate survival analyses. Furthermore, the co-expression value of cytokeratin and vimentin was analyzed by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Results: The positive pan-cytokeratins AE1/AE3 (AE1/AE3 for short) staining was chiefly observed in cytoplasm of epithelial component tumor cells, with a positive detection rate of 85.4% (70/82). Interestingly, 19 cases showed AE1/ AE3 positive staining both in epithelial and spindle components (23.2%). However, AE1/AE3 expression was not observed with any significant association with age, gender, tumor location, gross appearance, lymph node metastasis and TNM stage. Furthermore, AE1/AE3 protein expression does not show any effect on survival. Similar results were observed for vimentin immunoassay. However, in comparison with a single protein, the predictive power of AE1/AE3 and vimentin proteins signature was increased apparently than with single signature [0.75 (95% CI = 0.68–0.82) with single protein v.s. 0.89 (95% CI = 0.85–0.94) with AE1/AE3 and vimentin proteins]. The 1-, 3-, 5- and 7-year survival rates for PESC patients in this study were 79.3%, 46.3%, 28.0% and 15.9%, respectively. Multivariate analysis demonstrated age and TNM stage were independent prognostic factors for overall survival (P = 0.036 and 0.003, respectively). It is noteworthy that only 17.1% patients had a PESC accurate diagnosis by biopsy pathology before surgery (14/82). 72.4% PESC patients with biopsy pathology before surgery had been diagnosed as squamous cell carcinoma. Conclusion: The present study demonstrates that cytokeratin and vimentin protein immunoassay is a useful biomarker for PESC accurate diagnosis, but not prognosis. The co-expression of cytokeratin and vimentin in both epithelial and spindle components suggest the possibility of single clone origination for PESC. Keywords: Esophagus, Spindle cell carcinoma, Immunohistochemical staining, Cytokeratin, Vimentin * Correspondence: [email protected] 1Henan Key Laboratory for Esophageal Cancer Research of the First Affiliated Hospital, Zhengzhou University, 40 Daxue Road, Zhengzhou, Henan 450052, People’s Republic of China Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © The Author(s). 2018 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. Li et al. BMC Cancer (2018) 18:356 Page 2 of 12 Table 1 Clinical characteristics of 82 PESC patients n (%) No. of case of examination (%) Age < 60 years 26 (31.7) ≥ 60 years 56 (68.3) Gender Male 57 (69.5) Female 25 (30.5) Family history Positive 18 (22.0) Negative 64 (78.0) Smoking Yes 41 (50.0) Fig. 1 Histological examination (100×) revealed two No 41 (50.0) tumor components Alcohol Yes 36 (43.9) immunohistochemical features for CK and vimentin in No 46 (56.1) PESC accurate diagnosis and prognosis prediction. Tumor location In the present study, we retrospectively analyzed the Uppera 3 (3.7) CK and vimentin immunoreactivity and their possible Middle 54 (65.9) roles in accurate diagnosis and prognosis on 82 cases Lower 25 (30.4) with PSEC, which were retrieved from our esophageal Gross appearance cancer database from 1973 to 2015. Polypoid 69 (84.1) Methods Ulcerative 8 (9.8) Patients Infiltrating 5 (6.1) The two hundreds and eighty-six PESC patients were Lymph node metastasis identified from the esophageal and gastric cardia cancer Yes 23 (28.0) database (with a total of 500,000 patients) established by No 59 (72.0) Henan Key Laboratory for Esophageal Cancer Research, the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University TNM stage from 1973 to 2015 [6]. Based on the criteria of more I 29 (35.4) than 5 year follow-up after surgical treatment and II 37 (45.1) III 16 (19.5) IV 0 (0.0) aThere was one patient whose tumor location was in cervical segment Background The primary esophageal spindle cell carcinoma (PESC), which has also been referred to as carcinosarcoma, sar- comatoid carcinoma, pseudosarcoma, pseudosarcoma- tous carcinoma, or polypoid carcinoma in literature, has been classified as a subtype of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma by WHO in 2010 [1]. Histopathologically, PESC is characterized by mixed two components, i.e., epithelial and spindle. Although the histogenesis of these two different components remains largely unknown, the accumulated evidence from many case reports has indi- cated the differential role of cytokeratin (CK) and vimen- Fig. 2 The protein expressions of AE1/AE3 in PESC tissues by tin protein immunoassay in PESC diagnosis [2–5]. immunohistochemistry (100×). The positive immunostaining of AE1/ AE3 was localized in cell cytoplasm of epithelial component However, it has not been well characterized in terms of Li et al. BMC Cancer (2018) 18:356 Page 3 of 12 Table 2 The expression rate of AE1/AE3 protein in PESC Number Expression rate of χ2 P AE1/AE3 protein (%) Positive(n = 70) Negative(n = 12) Age < 60 years 26 19 (73.1) 7 (26.9) 3.28 0.070 ≥ 60 years 56 51 (91.1) 5 (8.9) Gender Male 57 48 (84.2) 9 (15.8) 0.01 0.914 Female 25 22 (88.0) 3 (12.0) Family history Positive 18 16 (88.9) 2 (11.1) 0.01 0.919 Negative 64 54 (84.3) 10 (15.7) Smoking Yes 41 34 (82.9) 7 (17.1) 0.10 0.755 No 41 36 (87.8) 5 (12.2) Alcohol Yes 36 30 (83.3) 6 (16.7) 0.21 0.654 No 46 40 (87.0) 6 (13.0) Tumor location Upper 3 2 (66.7) 1 (33.3) 1.48 0.580 Middle 54 46 (85.2) 8 (14.8) Lower 25 22 (88.0) 3 (12.0) Gross appearance Polypoid 69 59 (85.5) 10 (14.5) 1.30 0.660 Ulcerative 8 6 (75.0) 2 (25.0) Infiltrating 5 5 (100.0) 0 (0.0) Lymph node metastasis Yes 23 21 (91.3) 2 (8.7) 0.36 0.547 No 59 49 (83.1) 10 (16.9) TNM stage I 29 27 (93.1) 2 (6.9) 4.40 0.121 II 37 28 (75.7) 9 (24.3) III 16 15 (93.8) 1 (6.2) IV 0 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) detailed clinicohistopathological findings, eighty-two cohort was 50.1 months (range, 4.1–123.5 months). The PSEC patients were finally enrolled in this study, includ- success follow-up rate was 94.2%. Informed consent was ing 57 males with a mean age of 61.8 ± 8.8 years and 25 obtained from all these patients before taking part in our females with a mean age of 64.1 ± 6.6 years. All the study. This study was approved by the Ethical Committee PESC patients were performed surgical treatment and of Zhengzhou University (No.16047). did not receive any radio- or chemo-therapy before sur- gery. The clinicopathological characteristics of the 82 pa- Surgical specimen preparation and tients were summarized in Table 1. The gross appearance immunohistochemistry of PESC was classified into three types, i.e., polypoid, ul- The entire surgical specimen was routinely formalin- cerative and infiltrating [7]. Overall survival (OS) time was fixed, paraffin-embedded and H&E stained for histo- calculated from the day of esophagectomy to death or to pathological diagnosis and immunohistochenistry assay. the last follow-up. The median follow-up of the entire The immunoreactivty for pan-cytokeratins AE1/AE3 Li et al. BMC Cancer (2018) 18:356 Page 4 of 12 Table 3 The expression of AE1/AE3 protein in different components of PESC Number Expression rate of AE1/ Positive in epithelial Positive in spindle Positive in both of epithelial and χ2 P AE3 protein (%) component (%) component (%) spindle components (%) Age < 26 19 (73.1) 19 (73.1) 6 (23.1) 6 (23.1) 0.24 0.888 60 years ≥ 56 51 (91.1) 51 (91.1) 13 (23.2) 13 (23.2) 60 years Gender Male 57 48 (84.2) 48 (84.2) 13 (22.8) 13 (22.8) 0.00 1.000 Female 25 22 (88.0) 22 (88.0) 6 (24.0) 6 (24.0) Family history Positive 18 16 (88.9) 16 (88.9) 1 (5.6) 1 (5.6) 5.777 0.118 64 54 (84.3) 54 (84.3) 18 (28.1) 18 (28.1) Negative Smoking Yes 41 34 (82.9) 34 (82.9) 10 (24.4) 10 (24.4) 0.197 0.978 No 41 36 (87.8) 36 (87.8) 9 (22.0) 9 (22.0) Alcohol Yes 36 30 (83.3) 30 (83.3) 10 (27.8) 10 (27.8) 1.154 0.764 No 46 40 (87.0) 40 (87.0) 9 (19.6) 9 (19.6) Tumor location Upper 3 2 (66.7) 2 (66.7) 1 (33.3) 1 (33.3) 6.42 0.126 Middle 54 46 (85.2) 46 (85.2) 16 (29.6) 16 (29.6) Lower 25 22 (88.0) 22 (88.0) 2 (8.0) 2 (8.0) Gross appearance 69 59 (85.5) 59 (85.5) 15 (21.7) 15 (21.7) 3.22 0.794 Polypoid 8 6 (75.0) 6 (75.0) 1 (12.5) 1 (12.5) Ulcerative 5 5 (100.0) 5 (100.0) 3 (60.0) 3 (60.0) Infiltrating Lymph node metastasis Yes 23 21 (91.3) 21 (91.3) 8 (34.8) 8 (34.8) 1.60 0.449 No 59 49 (83.1) 49 (83.1) 11 (18.6) 11 (18.6) TNM stage I 29 27 (93.1) 27 (93.1) 3 (10.3) 3 (10.3) 6.71 0.146 II 37 28 (75.7) 28 (75.7) 9 (24.3) 9 (24.3) III 16 15 (93.8) 15 (93.8) 7 (43.8) 7 (43.8) IV 0 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) (AE1/AE3 for short) and CK5/6, chiefly in epithelial (1:100 dilutions, Gene Tech, USA).