Combination of peritumoral mast cells and T-regulatory cells predicts prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma

The peritumoral inflammatory environment is critical for the progression of intrahepatic recurrence of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) after curative resections. Here, we investigated the relevance of peritumoral mast cells (MCs) to HCC outcomes. Peritumoral tryptase+ MCs in addition to Foxp3+ T-regulatory cells (Tregs) were evaluated using immunohistochemistry enumeration in tissue microarrays containing 207 randomly selected HCC patients. Clinicopathological factors and postoperative outcomes were compared between high and low subgroups of MCs or Tregs. Compared to low denstiy, higher peritumoral MCs were associated with poorer clinical outcomes, and independently related to elevated 5-year recurrence incidence (54.1%vs 39.2%, P = 0.026). High-dense MCs were especially related to increased probability of early recurrence (within 2 years) (P = 0.004). We also found that peritumoral Tregs were positively correlated with MCs in density (r = 0.353, P