Inhibition of differentiaton protein expression in advanced Biliary Tract Cancer

Purpose: Inhibition of differentiation (ID) proteins are helix-loop-helix transcription factors, which are involved in the carcinogenesis of various tumors. For ID protein expression there are no data on biliary tract cancer (BTC) so far. Methods: We analyzed the expression of ID proteins 1–4 in 120 patients with advanced BTC and in 9 controls by immunohistochemistry (IHC). The expression data were correlated with clinicopathological variables in order to determine the relevance of the ID proteins in BTC. The IHC results were categorized into four groups for cytoplasmic (negative, weak, moderate, strong) and for…