A study of multinucleated giant cells in esophageal cancer

Objectives: To evaluate the occurrence, abundance, distribution, nature and clinical significance of multi-nucleated 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.