Clinicopathological and Prognostic Impact of 14-3-3 Protein Isoforms in Cholangiocarcinomas

Cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) is an adenocarcinoma arising from the epithelial tissue of the intra-hepatic (10%), hepatic hilar (25%) or extrahepatic (65%) bile ducts (Lim, 2003). It is accounting for approximately 3% of all gastrointestinal malignancies (Wijaya and Abdullah, 2011). Recent data show that the incidence of cholangiocarcinoma have been increasing in several areas worldwide (Shu et al., 2011), especially the incidence of intrahepatic CCA (Patel, 2001). Though several risk factors for developing cholangiocarcinoma have been identified, the pathogenesis of the disease remains poorly understood. Among gastrointestinal (GI) cancers, CCA is the most difficult to detect and diagnose (Mosconi et al., 2009), patients often have advanced stage disease at the time of diagnosis (Fava, 2010), leading to a poor clinical outcome (Tompkins et al., 1981; Tio et al., 1991; Miyakawa et al., 2009), the patient survival is usually measured in months, therefore it is of great importance to identify novel candidate markers and potential early indicators of this disease as well as molecules that may