Correlations of ultrasonic features with severity of liver cancer and p16 expression in patients with liver cancer

Hongyan Jia, Donglei Yan,  Qingna Xiao, Gaiying Zhang

Abstract:

This paper analyzes the correlations of ultrasonic features with clinical-pathological manifestations and p16 expression in patients with liver cancer. A total of 84 patients with primary liver cancer were randomly enrolled. The characteristics of liver cancer were examined via conventional ultrasound and contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) before operation. The p16 protein expressions in liver cancer and para-carcinoma tissues were detected via immunohistochemistry (IHC), and the correlations of p16 positive expression with ultrasound parameters were also analyzed. It was manifested via ultrasound that 6.4% (3/47) of stage I-II liver cancer showed the equal-echo change in portal phase, while others faded and showed the equal-echo change with 32.4% (12/37) of stage III-IV liver cancer. There were no statistically significant differences in ultrasonic features of patients in stage I-II and stage III-IV in the arterial and delayed phases (p>0.05). The positive expression rate of p16 protein in para-carcinoma tissues was 85.71% (72/84) which was significantly higher than that in liver cancer tissues (30.95%, 26/84) (p<0.05). Maximum intensity (IMAX), time to peak (TTP) and mean transit time (mTT) had no statistically significant differences between the p16 positive and negative groups, but there were statistically significant differences in rising slope (RS) and washout time (WT) (p<0.05). Correlation analyses revealed that the positive expression of p16 had no significant correlations with IMAX, mTT and TTP (p>0.05), but it positively correlated with RS (correlation coefficient r=0.377, p<0.05) and negatively correlated with WT (r=-0.410, p<0.05). Conventional ultrasound and CEUS can evaluate the expression of p16 protein in liver cancer repeatedly and non-invasively. The evaluations therefore have great significance in clinical treatment of liver cancer.