YKL-40 expression in soft-tissue sarcomas and atypical lipomatous tumors

Figures & data

Patient and tumor characteristics including immunohistochemical YKL-40 staining results in 49 soft-tissue tumors

			Grade		YKL-40
Factor	n	1	2	3	positive	negative
Sex
Male	29	8	11	9	23	6
Female	20	6	3	12	18	2
Age
Mean	58	–	–	–	–	–
Range	4–89
Site
Trunk wall	7	2	2	3	5	2
Upper extremity	11	5	4	2	8	3
Lower extremity	31	7	8	15	28	3
Depth
Subcutaneus	10	7	1	2	5	5
Deep-seated	39	7	13	19	36	3
Size, cm
< 5	15	3	6	6	15	0
> 5	34	11	8	15	26	8
Malignancy grade (FNCLCC)
1	14	–	–	–	6	8
2	14	–	–	–	14	0
3	21	–	–	–	21	0
Histological type
Atypical lipomatous tumor	9	9	0	0	1	8
Myxoid liposarcoma	7	1	5	1	7	0
Leiomyosarcom	6	1	1	4	6	0
Myxofibrosarcoma	5	0	2	3	5	0
Liposarcoma	3	0	1	2	3	0
Malignant fibrous histiocytoma	3	0	0	3	3	0
Myogenic sarcoma	3	1	1	1	3	0
Malignant periferel nervesheet tumor	3	0	2	1	3	0
Myxofibroblastic sarcoma	2	0	1	1	2	0
Synovial sarcoma	1	0	0	1	1	0
Epithelioid sarcoma	1	0	0	1	1	0
Rhabdomyosarcoma	1	0	0	1	1	0
Primitive neuroectodermal tumor	1	1	0	0	1	0
Fibrosarcoma	1	1	0	0	1	0
Unclassifiable	3	0	1	2	3	0
Patients developing metastases	23	2	6	15	23	0
Survival
Alive	25	12	6	7	17	8
Dead	24	2	8	14	24	0
Total	49	14	14	21	41	8

Figure 1. Immunohistochemical analysis of YKL-40 protein expression in paraffin sections of different types of soft-tissue sarcomas. The cytoplasmatic glycoproteins in both the tumor cells and the tumor stroma cells take up the stain, and it is therefore the intensity of all parts of the tumor that is evaluated. Positive immunostaining appears as a cytoplasmic, granular brown-colored staining. Left panel: a peripheral nerve sheet tumor, Trojani grade 2, with an average YKL-40 intensity score of 1. Middle panel: an unclassifiable sarcoma, Trojani grade 3, with an average YKL-40 intensity score of 2. Right panel: a synovial sarcoma, Trojani grade 3, with an average YKL-40 intensity score of 3.

Figure 2. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis. A. Survival analysis of all 49 patients with atypical lipomatous tumor (n = 9) or soft-tissue sarcoma (n = 40). B. Survival analysis of the 49 patients with atypical lipomatous tumor or soft-tissue sarcoma divided into 3 subgroups with negative or low ASI YKL-40 staining-intensity tumors (n = 12) (blue line), moderate staining-intensity tumors (n = 16) (brown line), and high staining-intensity tumors (n = 21) (green line). C. Survival analysis of the 49 patients with atypical lipomatous tumor or soft-tissue sarcoma divided into 3 subgroups based on the histological malignancy grade: grade-1 tumors (n = 14, blue line), grade-2 tumors (n = 14, green line), and grade-3 tumors (n = 21, brown line).