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Vascular Cell Adhesion Molecule 1 Predicts Cancer-Free Survival in Clear Cell Renal Carcinoma Patients

Authors' Affiliations: Departments of ¹ Urology and Molecular Genetics and ² Molecular Pathology and Oncology, Yokohama City University Graduate School of Medicine, Yokohama, Japan

Requests for reprints: Masahiro Yao, Department of Urology and Molecular Genetics, Yokohama City University Graduate School of Medicine, 3-9 Fukuura, Kanazawa-ku, Yokohama 236-0004, Japan. Phone: 81-45-787-2679; Fax: 81-45-786-5775; E-mail: masayao{at}med.yokohama-cu.ac.jp.

Purpose: Vascular cell adhesion molecule 1 (VCAM1) is a cell surface glycoprotein implicated in various pathophysiologic conditions. We measured VCAM1 expression levels in tumor tissues and evaluated its significance and prognostic use in renal cell carcinoma (RCC).

Experimental Design: We used real-time quantitative PCR to examine the VCAM1 expression levels of a total of 485 sporadic renal tumors, including 429 clear cell, 21 papillary, 17 chromophobe, 11 oncocytomas, and 7 collecting duct carcinomas. We retrospectively examined the relationship of this expression to various clinicopathologic variables and the von Hippel-Lindau alteration status. We evaluated its significance with respect to patient survival rates using the Cox regression model combined with the split-sample method.

Results: Compared with normal kidney samples (n = 43), VCAM1 was significantly up-regulated in clear cell RCC and papillary RCC, whereas it was down-regulated in chromophobe RCC and oncocytoma. In clear cell RCC, VCAM1 expression levels were apparently high in patients asymptomatic at presentation and in patients with small tumor size, low-stage, low-grade, microvascular invasion–negative, and von Hippel-Lindau alteration-positive tumors. Univariate analyses showed that VCAM1 high expression is strongly associated with better outcomes in clear cell and papillary RCCs. Further, Cox multivariate analysis models combined with the split-sample method revealed that this association is significant only in cancer-free survival for patients with clear cell RCC after curative surgical resection.

Conclusions: VCAM1 expression levels were found to be histologically subtype specific in renal tumors. Determination of the VCAM1 expression level as a biomarker can provide useful prognostic information for patients with clear cell RCC.