Expression of PTEN and mTOR in sacral chordoma and association with poor prognosis

Sacral chordoma is an aggressive, locally invasive neoplasm, and has a poor prognosis. However, the molecular basis for the clinical behavior remains unknown. The purpose of this study was to investigate the expression of phosphatase and tensin homolog deleted on chromosome 10 (PTEN) and mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) in sacral chordoma, and explore their roles in the prognosis. PTEN and mTOR were detected immunohistochemically in 40 sacral chordoma tissues and 10 adjacent normal tissues. Correlations between PTEN and mTOR expression and clinicopathological factors were analyzed. Kaplan–Meier survival curves and log-rank test were used to analyze the continuous disease-free survival time (CDFS). The expression of PTEN in sacral chordoma was significantly lower than that in adjacent normal tissues, while the levels of mTOR expression in sacral chordoma were significantly higher than that in adjacent normal tissues (P = 0.000, P = 0.030). The positive expression of mTOR appears to correlate with the negative expression of PTEN in sacral chordoma (P = 0.021). PTEN-negative expression and mTOR-positive expression were associated with tumor invasion into the surrounding muscles (P = 0.038, P = 0.014). Log-rank test showed that PTEN-negative and mTOR-positive expressions had an important impact on the patients’ CDFS (P = 0.011, P = 0.015). Our results suggest that PTEN and mTOR might play an important role in the local invasiveness of sacral chordoma. PTEN and mTOR might be recognized as important prognostic predictors of recurrence and could be used as potential therapeutic targets for the treatment for sacral chordoma.