OBJECTIVETo investigate the enhanced predictive activity of preoperative plasma osteopontin (OPN) level in combination with intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) for recurrence and prognosis of patients after resection of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

METHODSA total of 75 patients received liver resection for HCC from August 2001 to December 2001 in authors' institute were enrolled in this study. The preoperative plasma levels of OPN and ICAM-1 were detected by ELISA, and the association of them combination with the recurrence and prognosis of HCC patients was analyzed.

RESULTSOPN and ICAM-1 could be detected in all of the plasma samples of the tested patients. A significantly higher OPN level and ICAM-1 level were found in plasma of patients who were found to have HCC recurrence during the follow-up time compared with those without recurrence (210.40 vs. 154.86 ng/ml, P = 0.001; 1011.23 vs. 747.49 ng/ml, P = 0.027). A significant difference of OS and DFS were found in different subgroups with higher or lower level of OPN (625 vs. 808 days, P = 0.0006; 433 vs. 674 days, P = 0.0003); and a similar situation was found in patients of high- and low- ICAM-1 levels (651 vs. 794 days, P = 0.0269; 489 vs. 642 days, P = 0.0248). The 2-year recurrence rates of the patients with higher and lower plasma levels of both OPN and ICAM-1 were 87.50% and 28.00% (P < 0.001), respectively; and the 2-year OS rates were 37.50% and 88.00% (P = 0.001), and the 2-year DFS rates were 12.50%, and 76.00 (P = 0.001), respectively.

CONCLUSIONSThe evaluation of preoperative plasma level of OPN or ICAM-1 may be helpful to predict the recurrence and prognosis of HCC patients in advance. The assessment of OPN level in combination with ICAM-1 could stratify patients into groups with different potentials of HCC recurrence and different outcomes more accurately than OPN or ICAM-1 individually.