Clinicopathological significance of Fas and Fas ligand expressions in esophageal cancer
Authors: Dong Jiang
Yin Li
Chun-Xia Pan
Qiang Zhang
Shi-Ying Zheng
Guang-Zhou Wu
Journal: American journal of cancer research (2015)
Discipline: CLINICAL MEDICINE
Keywords: Esophageal carcinoma; Fas ligand (FasL); counterattack; immune privilege.
Affiliations: Department of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery, The First People's Hospital of Yancheng Yancheng 224006, Jiangsu Province, China., The Third People's Hospital of Dalian Dalian 116000, China., Department of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University Suzhou 215006, Jiangsu Province, China., Department of Thoracic Surgery, The Tumor Hospital of Henan Zhengzhou 450008, Henan Province, P. R. China.

Abstract:  Esophageal carcinomas have recently been shown to express Fas ligand (FasL) and down-regulate Fas to escape from host immune surveillance. However, the prognostic importance of Fas/FasL and their correlation with clinicopathological characteristics are yet to be delineated in this highly malignant carcinoma. Specimens from 106 esophageal squamous cell carcinoma patients were used for immuno-histochemical evaluation of Fas, FasL, and CD8 expressions. Fifty-two (49%) and 34 (32%) patients were positive for FasL and Fas, respectively. There were no associations between FasL expression and clinicopathological characteristics except lymph vessel invasion. Strong FasL expression correlated with significant (P &lt; 0.001) decrease in tumor nest CD81 cells. However, neither FasL nor CD81 had any impact on patient survival. Strong Fas expression was correlated with depth of invasion (40.3% in pT1, T2 versus 20.5% in pT3, T4; P5 0.0308), histological differentiation (45.7% in well versus 25.4% in nonwell; P &lt; 0.05), and lymph node metastasis (22.6% in positive versus 45.5% in negative; P &lt; 0.01). Fas expression was one of the independent favorable prognosticators for patients' survival (risk ratio, 3.26; P &lt; 0.01) in esophageal SCC. Fas expression was an independent prognosticator for recurrencefree survival, whereas FasL expression did not influence the survival in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. Down-regulation of tumor Fas may be the hallmark of immune privilege for the tumor, thus causing the patients' poorer outcome. Tumor FasL may counterattack the host immune cells to such an extent that the prognosis is not affected. 

Retracted: No

PubPeer comments:
 Retracted [15 December 2015] .  A large portion of the data and the text in this article was copied from another source as disclosed by a knowledgeable informant and subsequently confirmed by the Editorial Office. Therefore, the entire article has been retracted in accordance with this journalu2019s policy and Editorial decision. The original source was  Prognostic Significance of Fas and Fas Ligand Expressions in Human Esophageal Cancer ([Shibakita 2009] ). Original version:  Surgically resected specimens were collected from 106 consecutive patients with esophageal SCC who had been operated on with a curative intent between December 1980 and December 1995 at the Second Department of Surgery, Shimane Medical University. None of them had preoperative radiotherapy or chemotherapy. Clinicopathological characteristics of these patients were investigated based on the tumor-node-metastasis classification of the malignant tumors (14) .  The macroscopic tumor classification (Borrmann classification) was done according to the Japanese criteria set for the esophageal patients (15) , which conforms with the well-recognized Borrmann classification defined for gastric carcinoma patients (16) . Plagiarised version:  Surgically resected specimens were collected from 106 consecutive patients with esophageal SCC who had been operated on with a curative intent between December 2004 and December 2005 at the First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University. None of them had preoperative radiotherapy or chemotherapy. Clinico-pathological characteristics of these patients were investigated based on the tumor-node-metastasis classification of the malignant tumors [14]. The macroscopic tumor classification (Borrmann classification) was done according to the Japanese criteria set for the esophageal patients [15], which conforms with the well-recognized Borrmann classification defined for gastric carcinoma patients . The plagiarists did not bother to change  Japanese criteria , and the journal s editors didn t question this. ,