CD24 expression is a significant predictor of PSA relapse and poor prognosis in low grade or organ confined prostate cancer

BACKGROUND. The prognostic impact of tumor grading and staging is markedly reduced in organ confined or moderately differentiated prostate cancer, which underscores the importance of new prognostic markers. Evaluating public expression data of prostate cancer, we found an upregulation of the candidate gene CD24. METHODS. We examined immunohistochemically the expression of CD24 protein in 31 nodal metastases and 102 adenocarcinomas of the prostate and correlated our findings to clinicopathological parameters. RESULTS. CD24 expression was found in 48% of primary prostate cancer cases and in 68% of lymph node metastases. Kaplan Meier curves and Cox regression analysis showed that CD24 expression was strongly linked to significantly earlier disease progression (relative risk = 3.2), which was especially pronounced in organ confined, or moderately differentiated primary prostate tumors. CONCLUSIONS. We conclude that CD24 is an important prognostic tissue marker for prostate cancer which could help to define patients of low or high risk of recurrence.