Expression profile and prognostic value of glypican‐3 in post‐operative South Korean hepatocellular carcinoma patients

Hepatocellular carcinoma ( HCC ) patients commonly experience poor overall survival ( OS ) and disease‐free survival ( DFS ) after curative surgical resection. Glypican‐3 ( GPC 3) has been suggested as a prognostic biomarker for post‐operative survival. However, few to none of these studies have included South Korean patients. This study aimed to determine GPC 3 expression rate, clinical correlation, and post‐operative prognostic value in South Korean HCC patients who underwent curative surgical resection. Surgically resected tissues from 185 HCC patients were collected and assembled into tissue microarrays ( TMA s), which were stained for GPC 3 by immunohistochemistry. GPC 3 expression rates were correlated with clinicopathological information, and survival analyses were performed to assess the prognostic value of GPC 3. GPC 3 expression was present in 153 patients (82.7%). GPC 3‐positive patients were younger with higher frequencies of microvascular invasion and higher AFP levels than GPC 3‐negative patients. There was no significant difference in survival between GPC 3‐negative and GPC 3‐positive patients. Based on multivariate analysis, GPC 3 expression was not a prognostic marker for post‐operative survival. In South Korean HCC patients, GPC 3 expression was more frequent in HCC s with aggressive features, but it was not an independent prognostic biomarker.