Increased Expression of CSF-1 Associates With Poor Prognosis of Patients With Gastric Cancer Undergoing Gastrectomy

Clinical significance of diametrically polarized tumor-associated macrophages in gastric cancer has been elucidated in our previous study, whereas the role of cytokines that orchestrate tumor-associated macrophages polarization in gastric cancer remains elusive. The study aims to evaluate the prognostic value of colony-stimulating factor-1 expression in patients with gastric cancer. We examined the colony-stimulating factor-1 expression in tumor tissues by immunohistochemical staining in retrospectively enrolled 365 patients with gastric cancer undergoing gastrectomy at Zhongshan Hospital during 2008. Kaplan-Meier analysis and Cox regression models were used to evaluate the prognostic value of colony-stimulating factor-1 expression and its association with clinicopathological factors. A predictive nomogram by integrating colony-stimulating factor-1 expression with the TNM staging system was generated for overall survival evaluation of the patients. High colony-stimulating factor-1 expression predicted an unfavorable outcome in gastric cancer. The colony-stimulating factor-1 expression in tumor tissue could give a further discrimination for the prognosis of gastric cancer patients. Cox multivariate analysis identified the colony-stimulating factor-1 expression as an independent prognostic factor. The generated nomogram performed well in predicting the 3- and 5-year overall survival of gastric cancer patients. The colony-stimulating factor-1 is a potential independent adverse prognosticator for gastric cancer patients, which could be integrated with the tumor-associated macrophages staging system to improve the predictive accuracy for overall survival, especially in advanced tumors.