Background: AKR1B10 is considered to contribute to cell proliferation and chemoresistance. In the present study, we examined whether AKR1B10 expression is associated with disease-free survival in bladder cancer patients.
Methods: We obtained bladder cancer specimens from 10 patients before and after chemotherapy and measured AKR1B10 mRNA levels using real-time PCR. In addition, we conducted an immunohistochemical examination of AKR1B10 expression in 57 patients with bladder cancer before and after chemotherapy.
Results: AKR1B10 mRNA expression was significantly higher in the post-chemotherapy group than in the pre-chemotherapy group (p < 0.001). The average immunohistochemical intensity score in the pre-chemotherapy group was 0.83 ± 1.08, compared with the significantly higher score of 2.03 ± 1.03 in the post-chemotherapy group (p < 0.001). The disease-free survival rate of post-chemotherapy AKR1B10(+) patients (61.2%) was significantly lower than that of AKR1B10(-) patients (100%) (log-rank test, p = 0.039).
Conclusions: Although the present study is small and preliminary, our data suggest that post-chemotherapy AKR1B10 expression may be associated with a poor prognosis in patients who received carboplatin-gemcitabine combination chemotherapy and underwent cystectomy. Further study is warranted to elucidate its clinical significance.