Cortactin Expression Identifies Invasion Depth in Superficial Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Abstract

Invasion depth determines the treatment of early esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC), but was hard to be accurately diagnosed. According to digitalization of the immunohistochemical staining, the cortactin (CTTN) expression was strongly correlated with the invasion depth (r > 0.5) and obviously upregulated in the invaded carcinomas (P<0.0001) in the ESCCs tissues covering all stage. Comparison of the quantified values between the different invasion depths showed that the H-score of CTTN expression was capable to indicate the superficial lesions within endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) indication (AUC= 0.74), which performance was superior than that of the artificial IHC score. Among the superficial lesions, the H-score was particularly effective to identify the lesions within ESD indications (AUC=0.79) with high specificity (0.83) and PPV (0.88). This study demonstrated the effectiveness of CTTN expression in identifying the invasion depth in superficial, which results would facilitate the accurate treatment of the early ESCC.

Keywords: ESCC, CTTN, ESD indication, Invasion depth, Quantified IHC