Inverse correlation of aberrant expression of fragile histidine triad (FHIT) protein with cyclin D1 protein and prognosis in Chinese patients with cholangiocarcinoma

Background. This is the first study to explore the relationship between the expression of fragile histidine triad, FHIT and cyclin D1 proteins, and the clinicopathological significance of the two proteins in Chinese patients with cholangiocarcinoma. Material and methods. Immunohistochemistry was used to study 53 cases of cholangiocarcinoma, 30 para-neoplastic and 20 normal bile ducts for their expression status of FHIT and cyclin D1 and then the results were analyzed with the patient's age, sex, tumour site, histological grade and clinical stage as well as overall median survival time. Results. Compared with the para-neoplastic and normal cholangiocytes, the expression of FHIT was obviously decreased (p=0.0001), whereas that of cyclin D1 was significantly increased (p=0.0001) in carcinoma cells. The expression of FHIT was found to be correlated with the histological grade (p=0.007) and the clinical stage (p=0.004), but not with age (p=0.776), sex (p=0.246) or tumour site (p=0.347). The expression of cycli...