Expression change of ezrin as a prognostic factor in primary osteosarcoma

Osteosarcoma is a life-threatening malignancy that most often occurs in teenagers. Ezrin is a cytoskeleton linker protein that is actively involved in the metastatic capacity of cancer cells. In this study, we investigated the expression change of ezrin after preoperative chemotherapy and its prognostic value in patients with primary osteosarcoma. Ezrin mRNA expression level of initial biopsy specimens and resected tumor specimens after preoperative chemotherapy of 25 patients who had primary osteosarcoma with ezrin expression was detected by semiquantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT–PCR) to evaluate the expression change of ezrin. In addition, the prognostic factors and the relationship between the expression change of ezrin and the clinical characteristics were analyzed. Expression change of ezrin was found in 64% of all 25 patients. The expression change of ezrin had good relation with histology (P = 0.037), grade (P = 0.006), chemotherapy response (P = 0.017), and metastasis or recurrence (P = 0.041). The 2-year overall survival and event-free survival were associated with expression change of ezrin (P = 0.001 and P = 0.002, respectively) and response to preoperative chemotherapy (P = 0.001 and P = 0.012, respectively). Our findings suggest that expression change of ezrin is an independent positive prognostic factor in non-metastatic osteosarcoma.