Abstract
There have been several studies on gallbladder carcinogenesis, and mutations of the KRAS, TP53, and CDKN2A genes have been reported in gallbladder carcinoma. The DBC1 gene (deleted in breast cancer 1) was initially cloned from region 8p21, which was homozygously deleted in breast cancer. DBC1 has been implicated in cancer cell proliferation and death. The functional role of DBC1 in normal cells and the role of DBC1 loss in cancer are not entirely clear. And DBC1 expression and its clinical implications in gallbladder carcinoma have yet to be thoroughly elucidated. Therefore, we evaluated DBC1 expression in 104 gallbladder carcinoma tissues in relation to survival and other prognostic factors via immunohistochemical analysis. DBC1 expression was divided into two categories: high DBC1 expression was observed in 32/104 cases (30.8%) and low expression in 72/104 cases (69.2%). High DBC1 expression correlated significantly with favorable clinicopathologic variables. Furthermore, in survival analysis, the high-DBC1 expression group showed a better survival rate compared to the low-DBC1 expression group. In conclusion, high DBC1 expression is associated with several favorable clinicopathologic factors in gallbladder carcinoma. These findings suggest that loss of DBC1 expression plays a role in tumorigenesis and tumor progression in gallbladder carcinoma.