A study of multinucleated giant cells in esophageal cancer

Objectives To evaluate the occurrence, abundance, distribution, nature and clinical significance of multinucleated giant cell (MGC) in esophageal cancer. Materials and methods MGCs were examined with conventional pathology, immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescence in 107 esophageal cancer tissues. The findings were correlated to pathological diagnosis and clinical behavior of the cancers. Results MGCs were identified in 31.7% (34/107) of the cases. MGCs were positive for CD11c, CD11b, CD32, CD16, HLA-DR and MMP9, and negative for CD163, CD206 and CD64 giving a molecular profile of proinflammatory M1 but not immunosuppressive M2. MGCs were significantly related to decreased lymph node metastasis (p = 0.011), low pTNM stage (p = 0.044), favorable survival (p = 0.04), squamous cell cancer type rather than other histopathological subtypes (p = 0.020) and associated to better differentiation (p = 0.063). Conclusions MGCs belong to M1 macrophage and perform phagocytosis and scavenging of cancer cells that would benefit patients' survival and could serve as a prognostic marker.