Figure 1.

Concomitant elevated expression of HBx and OV6 predicts a poor prognosis for patients with HBV-related HCC. (a) The mRNA expression levels of HBx in 267 primary HCC specimens were evaluated by qRT-PCR. The mRNA levels of β-actin were used as an internal control. The expression level of HBx was determined using the delta-delta Ct method. (b) TMA sections of HCC were applied for immunohistochemical (IHC) staining for the expression of OV6 (n=267). The staining intensity of OV6 was scored from 0 to 3. Representative IHC images of OV6 staining in HCC specimens are shown (scale bar=50 μm). (c) Correlation analysis of HBx and OV6 expression in HCC tissues (Chi coefficient=0.282; P<0.0001). (d) The percentage of patients with relatively high OV6 staining was much greater in the HBx-high group when compared with that in the HBx-low group (53.33 versus 25.76%). (e and f) The overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) rates of 267 patients with HCC were compared among different groups. (g) Multivariate analysis of the hazard ratios (HRs) for overall survival and tumor recurrence. Univariate Cox proportional hazard (PH) analyses were conducted for each variable and covariate. A multivariate Cox PH regression model was established, and the HRs were presented as the means (95% confidence interval). Only variables that met the PH assumption in the univariate analysis would be included in the multivariate Cox PH analysis