Prognostic value of stem cell markers in glioblastoma

Abstract

Background/Context: Glioblastoma (GB) is the most common primary brain tumour in adults and it is associated with a high mortality rate. According to the stem cell theory, the growth, relapse and treatment response of GB is determined by the stem cell subpopulation present in the tumour.

Objective: Our aim is to study the prognostic value of stem cell markers (CD44, Nestin, Olig2 and SOX2) in a series of homogeneously treated GBs.

Material and methods: We study 280 GBs treated with STUPP acheme with a histologican review of the cases and TMA with a máximum of 4 spots for each case. Each slide was immunohistochemically stained and Reading. We compared the immunohistochemical results with survival tme.

Results: Only SOX2 immunoexpression (IE) excedding 10% of the tumour cells was found to be related to good survival (p= 0.037) in univariate analysis. However, amultivariate analysis indicate the age, surgery and MGMT promotes methylation but no SOX2 IE are prognostic factors.

Conclusions: We conclude the immunohistochemical studies of stem cell markers in GB are not useful for predicting prognosis in daily practice.

KEYWORDS::

• Glioblastoma
• CD44
• Nestin
• Olig2
• SOX2
• prognosis

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Mrs Marta Lorenzo and Beatriz Casado from Oncological Research and Immunohistochemical Unit (IMIM, Barcelona, Spain), for technical support.

Ethical considerations

This work was approved By the Ethical Committee of the Hospital del Mar with a number 2013/5122.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by grants from Fundació La Marató under grant no. [20130332] to FA and the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad/ISCIII-FEDER [PI14/00125; PI17/00199] and the “Generalitat de Catalunya” [2014/SGR/143] to PN.