Prognostic Significance of Chromogranin A Expression in the Initial and Second Biopsies in Metastatic Prostate Cancer

Zhuo Huang; Ying Tang; Yuyan Wei; Jingyu Qian; Yifan Kang; Duohao Wang; Miao Xu; Ling Nie; Xueqin Chen; Ni Chen; Qiao Zhou

doi:10.3390/jcm12103362

Prognostic Significance of Chromogranin A Expression in the Initial and Second Biopsies in Metastatic Prostate Cancer

J Clin Med. 2023 May 9;12(10):3362. doi: 10.3390/jcm12103362.

Authors

Zhuo Huang¹, Ying Tang², Yuyan Wei¹, Jingyu Qian¹, Yifan Kang¹, Duohao Wang¹, Miao Xu¹, Ling Nie¹, Xueqin Chen¹, Ni Chen¹, Qiao Zhou¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pathology, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, China.
² Department of Pathology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Chengdu Medical College, Chengdu 610500, China.

Abstract

Neuroendocrine differentiation (NED) characterized by the expression of neuroendocrine markers, such as chromogranin A (CgA), is frequently observed in advanced prostate cancer (PCa), the prognostic significance of which is still controversial. Here we specifically addressed the issue of the potential prognostic value of CgA expression in advanced-stage PCa patients with distant metastases and its change over time from metastatic hormone-sensitive (mHSPC) to metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC). CgA expression was assessed immunohistochemically in initial biopsies of mHSPC, as well as in second biopsies of mCRPC in sixty-eight patients, and its correlation with prognosis (together with conventional clinicopathologic parameters) was analyzed using the Kaplan-Meier method and Cox proportional hazard model. We found that CgA expression was an independent adverse prognostic factor for both mHSPC (CgA positivity ≥ 1%, HR = 2.16, 95% CI: 1.04-4.26, p = 0.031) and mCRPC (CgA ≥ 10%, HR = 20.19, 95% CI: 3.04-329.9, p = 0.008). CgA positivity generally increased from mHSPC to mCRPC and was a negative prognosticator. The assessment of CgA expression may help with the clinical evaluation of advanced-stage patients with distant metastases.

Keywords: CgA expression; overall survival; prognosis; prostate cancer.

Grants and funding

This study was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC 82273073, 82273047, 82002721, 81872108, 81872107) and the Sichuan Province Science and Technology Support Program (2020YJ0008, 2021YFS0114).