Clinical Significance of Cancer Stem Cell Markers CD133 and CXCR4 in Osteosarcomas

OBJECTIVE: Osteosarcomas (OS) is one the most common primary bone malignancy in humans with the lungs metastasis in most cases. Metastasis and recurrence of OS is attributed to cancer stem cells (CSCs). Our study aimed to evaluate the clinical significance of CD133 and C-X-C chemokine receptor type 4 (CXCR4) as the frequently applied markers for CSCs in OS patients. METHODS: In this cross-sectional, a total of 50 tissue samples from the patients with primary OS were immunohistochemically examined to detect the expression of CD133 and CXCR4. The associations of the relative expression and clinical significance of each marker were also evaluated. RESULTS: High level expression of CD133 was detected in 26% of OS patient tissues. Of the 12 patients who showed lung metastasis, 5 cases showed high expression of CD133 with marginal trend correlation (P=0.06). No significant correlation was observed between CD133 expression and clinicopathological factors. Only 36% of cases showed CXCR4 expression which was not significantly correlated with gender, age, tumor size, necrosis, stage and metastasis (P>0.05). Clinically, patients with concomitant CD133/CXCR4 expression had significant association with lung metastasis (P=0.05). CONCLUSION: Our findings showed that concomitant expression of CSC markers CD133/CXCR4 might had a synergistic effect on the OS poor prognosis. These markers could be considered as potential therapeutic candidates of OS targeted therapy.