Forty-nine out of 86 patients (57%) considered for the survival analysis were negative for nuclear expression of S100A4 in the neoplastic cells; scattered cytoplasmic expression was found in 70% of these

cases (34/49). In the remaining 37 patients the FK506 concentration median value of nuclear expression of S100A4 was 30% of the discernible nuclei in the neoplastic ducts. Among the positive samples, 51% (19/37) were in the weakly positive (S100A4 <30% of the nuclei) and 49% (18/37) were in the strongly positive group (S100A4 ≥30% of the nuclei) (Fig. 1A-F). Table 1 shows the distribution of demographic and clinical characteristics of the patients included in the study, stratified by S100A4 grouping. Baseline characteristics were comparable between the three S100A4 groups. None of the 23 tissue sections available from the peritumoral areas showed

nuclear BGJ398 supplier and/or cytoplasmic expression of S100A4 on the bile ducts. By Spearman’s rho test we found no correlation between the expression of keratin 19 (K19) and that of nuclear S100A4 in the neoplastic bile ducts. Kaplan-Meier and Cox proportional hazard models were performed in the 86 patients surviving more than 1 month after surgery. The median survival time based on 86 subjects was 2.89 years (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.57,5.40). As shown in Table 2, Supporting Table S1, and Fig. 2A, for subjects with no nuclear expression of S100A4 (n = 49), the median survival time was 5.40 years (95% CI = 2.31,16.00).

In sharp contrast, for subjects with weakly positive nuclear expression of S1004A (<30% of nuclei, n = 19) the median survival time was 1.38 years (95% CI = 0.76,4.45), whereas MCE公司 for subjects with strongly positive nuclear expression of S100A4 (≥30% of nuclei, n = 18) the median survival time was further reduced to 0.77 years (95% CI = 0.14,2.89). These data indicate that nuclear S100A4 is associated with a significant reduction in survival, even when weakly expressed. Consistent with the interpretation that S100A4 is associated with a significant reduction in survival, the univariate analysis showed that S100A4 nuclear expression levels were strongly predictive of survival (P = 0.003, log-rank test for trend) and that higher levels of nuclear expression of S100A4 were associated with shorter survival times for patients. Furthermore, the Cox proportional hazards regression analysis showed that S100A4 is an independent predictor of survival whether it was treated as a continuous (HR = 1.02, P = 0.007) (Table 3) or categorical variable (0-30% versus 0: HR = 2.58, P = 0.03 and ≥30% versus 0: HR = 3.02, P = 0.01), and even after controlling for other covariates. The HR of 1.02 when S100A4 is treated as a continuous variable indicates that a 10% increase in S100A4 expression levels is associated with a 22% increase in a patient’s hazard rate.