Abstract
BACKGROUND: Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is one of the most common cancers, especially in China. Its 5-year survival rate remains very low. Lysosomal associated membrane proteins (LAMPs), including LAMP1 and LAMP2, are major protein components of the lysosome, which also plays an important role in tumor evolution. Our previous studies have confirmed that LAMP1 and LAMP2 play an important role in the evolution and prognosis of ESCC. To further explore their roles in ESCC, we compared the roles of LAMP1 and LAMP2 in predicting the prognosis of ESCC. METHODS: Five hundred and seventy-nine ESCC patients were enrolled in this study. The clinical information, address and telephone number of patients were collected from the medical records. RESULTS: The 3-year survival rate was 51.91% (231/445), and 5-year survival rate was 34.58% (83/240). Kaplan-Meier survival curves indicated that the higher the expression level of LAMP1, the worse the prognosis of patients, compared with LAMP2 (P<0.05). Additionally, we used the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves to compare the sensitivity and specificity of LAMP1 and LAMP2 in predicting prognosis of ESCC. The area under the curve (AUC) of LAMP1 was significantly higher than that of LAMP2 (AUC(LAMP1) =0.593, AUC(LAMP2) =0.534, P<0.05), which indicated that the LAMP1 is a more sensitive marker than LAMP2. CONCLUSIONS: LAMP1 is more sensitive than LAMP2 in predicting the prognosis of ESCC, which indicated that LAMP1 may play a more important role in the evolution and metastasis of ESCC.