Journal of Clinical & Experimental Pathology
Open Access

Research Article

The Expression of Stem Cell Markers in Typical Hepatocellular Carcinoma and its Fibrolamellar

Department of Pathology, Medical University of Warsaw, Pawinskiego St 7, Warsaw, 02-106, Poland

*Corresponding Author:

Julita Sirak
Department of Pathology
Medical University of Warsaw
Pawinskiego St 7, Warsaw
02-106, Poland
Tel: +48225991670
Fax: +48225991671
E-mail: julita224@gmail.com

Received date: May 30, 2016; Accepted date: June 20, 2016; Published date: June 21, 2016

Citation: Szparecki G, Ilczuk T, Gornicka B, Sirak J (2016) The Expression of Stem Cell Markers in Typical Hepatocellular Carcinoma and its Fibrolamellar Type. J Clin Exp Pathol 6:280. doi: 10.4172/2161-0681.1000280

Copyright: © 2016 Szparecki G, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the leading causes of death resulting from neoplasms worldwide. Its risk factors include liver cirrhosis and viral infections (chiefly hepatitis B and C virus). Recently novel factors associated with poor prognosis has been identified, which are deemed to result from the presence of cancer stem cells (CSCs) - the identification of EpCAM(+), CK19(+) and NCAM(+) cells within the tumour makes the prognosis worse. Fibrolamellar type of HCC (FL) is characterised by longer survival and independence from risk factors typical of HCC. In the present study we investigate differences between classical hepatocellular carcinoma and fibrolamellar hepatocellular carcinoma in terms of stem cell markers expression: EpCAM, CK19, cKIT and NCAM. In samples of FL HCC and other variants of the tumour the immunohistochemical analysis was performed. The immunoreactivity of FL HCC cells was significantly lower as far as a percentage of positive stained cells and a fraction of cases, where at least 5% of cells was positive is concerned when compared with typical HCC. The results indicate that one of the factors influencing better outcome in patients with FL, as opposed to typical HCC, might be the less numerous population of CSCs, as identified by their EpCAM(+) immunostaining.

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