Background and Aims. In patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), local treatment failure and distant metastasis contribute largely to poor outcomes. The nasopharynx is an important lymphoid tissue, and NPC tumourigenesis and development are partly attributed to immune system disorders. Human leukocyte antigen F (HLA-F) has shown a close correlation with NPC in many genome-wide association studies (GWASs). However, clinical studies rarely explore the relationship of HLA-F expression with the clinical parameters and outcomes in patients with NPC. Methods. In this study, we used immunohistochemistry to evaluate HLA-F expression in 74 paraffin-embedded NPC tissue sections and then analysed the association between HLA-F expression and clinical parameters and outcomes. The plasma concentration of soluble HLA-F (sHLA-F) in NPC patients and normal controls was also detected, via enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Results. Low, moderate, and high HLA-F expression levels were observed in 47.3% (35/74), 35.1% (26/74), and 17.6% (13/74), respectively, of the tissue samples. HLA-F expression showed a significant correlation with local recurrence () and distant metastasis () and was also an independent factor for local recurrence-free survival (LRFS; ) and distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS; ). Although the mean concentration of plasma sHLA-F in the NPC patients was higher than that in the normal controls (13.63 pg/ml vs. 10.06 pg/ml), no statistical significance was observed (). Conclusions. Our study provides the first evidence that high HLA-F expression is associated with NPC local recurrence and distant metastasis and may be regarded as a poor prognostic factor for NPC patients. Additional studies using larger sample sizes may be necessary to determine whether sHLA-F is a feasible NPC diagnostic indicator.

中文翻译：

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高 HLA-F 表达是鼻咽癌患者预后不良的因素。

背景和目标。在鼻咽癌 (NPC) 患者中，局部治疗失败和远处转移是导致不良预后的主要原因。鼻咽部是重要的淋巴组织，鼻咽癌的发生和发展部分归因于免疫系统紊乱。在许多全基因组关联研究 (GWAS) 中，人类白细胞抗原 F (HLA-F) 已显示与 NPC 密切相关。然而，临床研究很少探讨 HLA-F 表达与 NPC 患者临床参数和结果的关系。方法. 在这项研究中，我们使用免疫组织化学评估了 74 个石蜡包埋的 NPC 组织切片中的 HLA-F 表达，然后分析了 HLA-F 表达与临床参数和结果之间的关联。还通过酶联免疫吸附试验 (ELISA) 检测了 NPC 患者和正常对照中可溶性 HLA-F (sHLA-F) 的血浆浓度。结果。分别在 47.3% (35/74)、35.1% (26/74) 和 17.6% (13/74) 的组织样本中观察到低、中和高 HLA-F 表达水平。HLA-F 表达与局部复发呈显着相关性（)和远处转移 ()也是局部无复发生存期 (LRFS;)和无远处转移生存期 (DMFS;）。尽管 NPC 患者血浆 sHLA-F 的平均浓度高于正常对照组（13.63 pg/ml vs. 10.06 pg/ml），但未观察到统计学意义（）。 结论。我们的研究提供了第一个证据表明高 HLA-F 表达与 NPC 局部复发和远处转移有关，并且可能被认为是 NPC 患者的不良预后因素。可能需要使用更大样本量的额外研究来确定 sHLA-F 是否是可行的 NPC 诊断指标。