Cd44, A Cancer Stemness Marker, To Predict Poor Clinical Outcome Of Esophageal Cancer Patients After Neoadjuvant Chemoradiotherapy.

e15068 Background: The major causes of treatment failure in cancer are the development of metastases and drug resistance. Recently, extensive studies have shown hyaluronan (HA) - CD44 interactions are crucial in cancer stemness resulting in therapy resistance. However, their clinical role hasn’t been elucidated yet in esophageal cancer progression. Here, we analyzed whether CD44 expression could predict disease recurrence and prognosis in esophageal cancer patients undergoing neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (CRT). Methods: CD44 expression was evaluated in 79 patients with histologically confirmed esophageal squamous carcinomas (ESCC) undergoing preoperative CRT, by immunohistochemical staining. Survival analysis was carried out by the log-rank test using Kaplan-Meier method. Results: Among 79 patients, 38 showed CD44 positive expression (48.1%). Overall survival (OS) was significantly associated with lymph-node metastasis, distant metastasis and CRT, and was further correlated with the absence of both CD44 ...