Clinicopathological significance of aberrant methylation of the fragile histidine triad gene in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma

Objective To investigate the aberrant methylation of fragile histidine triad (FHIT) gene and to explore possible relationship between the aberrant methylation of FHIT and clinicopathological features in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).Methods The hypermethylation of FHIT was detected by the methylation specific PCR (MSP) method in 45 patients with HCC ( tumoral and nontumoral tissue), 14 cases of normal livers and 4 HCC cell lines (SK-Hep-1, Hep-G2, Hep-3B and Huh7). The correlation of FHIT methylaion and clinicopathological features was analyzed. Results The frequencies of hypermethylation of FHIT in tumoral and nontumoral tissue, normal liver and cell lines were 71.1%, 64.4%, 14.3% and 75.0%, respectively. A significant relation between hypermethylation of FHIT and poor survival was present (P=0.0430).Conclusions Hypermethylation of FHIT is a frequent and early event in HCC, it might relate to a poor prognosis for patients with HCC.