[Expression of estrogen receptor α in hepatitis B-related hepatocellular carcinoma and its clinical significance]

To investigate the expression and its clinical significance of estrogen receptor (ERα) and phosphorylated estrogen receptor (p-ERα) in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma. The associations between ERα, p-ERα and IL-6 were also analyzed.Immunohistochemistry was used to detect the expression of ERα, p-ERα and IL-6 in tumor tissues from 77 cases with hepatocellular carcinoma. The relations between ERα and the clinical pathological parameters and prognosis were also analyzed.The positive rates of ERα, p-ERα and IL-6 in hepatocellular carcinoma were 39.0% (30/77), 45.4% (35/77) and 72.7% (56/77), respectively. The expression of ERα and p-ERα were negatively correlated with the expression of IL-6 (r=-0.468, P0.01; r=-0.370, P0.01, respectively). The positive rate of ERα in patients with tumor size≤5 cm, serum level of alpha-fetoprotein400 µg/L, with complete encapsulation and non-microvascular invasion was significantly higher than those with tumor size5 cm, serum level of alpha-fetoprotein≥400 µg/L, non-complete encapsulation and with microvascular invasion (all P0.05). The overall survival rates of ERα-positive and ERα-negative patients were 66.7% and 23.4% (P0.05). And the disease-free survival rates of ERα-positive and ERα-negative patients were 83.3% and 57.4% (P0.05).The tumor biological features of ERα-positive patients are better than that of ERα-negative patients. The role of ERα in hepatocellular carcinoma may be related to IL-6 level.