Association of Wnt1/β-Catenin with Clinical Pathological Characteristics and Prognosis of Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma

The aim of this study was to investigate the correlation between Wnt1/β-catenin expression and the clinicopathologic features and prognosis of patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). The mRNA and protein expression levels of Wnt1/β-catenin genes in 70 ESCC and 15 adjacent noncancerous paraffin-embedded samples were determined by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction and immunohistochemical staining. The mRNA expression level of Wnt1/β-catenin in ESCC was significantly higher than that in the adjacent noncancerous tissues (1.9934 ± 1.9888 vs. 0.8863 ± 0.665, p = 0.0184; 0.2854 ± 0.1298 vs. 0.0128 ± 0.0158, p = 0.0000, respectively), and the overexpression of Wnt1/β-catenin mRNA was aggressively associated with lymph node metastasis and advanced pathological stage (p < 0.0001). The protein expression level of Wnt1/β-catenin was also significantly higher than that in the adjacent noncancerous tissues (0.3830 ± 0.0947 vs. 0.2721 ± 0.1474, p = 0.0002; 0.2835 ± 0.0844 vs. 0.2352 ± 0....