A chronic obstructive pulmonary disease negatively influences the prognosis of patients with bladder urothelial carcinoma via hypoxia inducible factor-1α

摘要

Objective: In this study, we investigated the relationship between the expression of hypoxia inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α) and tumor hypoxia, which is caused by chronic hypoxemic hypoxia in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and the prognostic value of COPD in patients with bladder urothelial carcinoma (BUC). Methods: The clinicopathological variables of 80 patients with BUC who underwent surgery were analyzed by retrospective methods. Overall survival (OS), disease-specific survival (DSS) and progression-free survival (PFS) were analyzed with clinicopathological variables including concomitant COPD, pulmonary function test (PFT), serum hemoglobin level and smoking history, using Kaplan-Meier survival analysis. The Cox proportional hazards regression model was used for multivariate analysis. The localization of HIF-1α expression was analyzed by immunohistochemistry. Results: Both the median OS and PFS of patients with COPD were shorter than the patients without COPD (P < 0.001). High levels of HIF-1α expression were associated with BUC of higher clinicopathological stage and histological grade (P < 0.001). COPD was an independent prognostic variable for OS, PFS and DSS. The clinicopathological stage was an independent prognostic variable for OS and DSS. The level of HIF-1α expression was an independent prognostic variable for PFS. Conclusions: COPD is an independent prognostic variable for BUC, and contributes to poor prognosis.