To investigate the role of regulatory factors in hilar cholangiocarcinoma according to the expression of Wnt canonical signaling pathway in tissue specimens.

The archived pathology specimens of one hundred and twenty-nine patients with hilar cholangiocarcinoma were collected to construct the tissue microarray between April 1998 and May 2007, and 45 cases of congenital choledochal cyst were considered as control group. The expression of Frizzled, LRP5/6, APC, Axin, as regulatory factors and target genes, were detected by using tissue microarray and were compared between different diseases.

The expression of Frizzled was higher in congenital choledochal cyst, compared to hilar cholangiocarcinoma (91.1% vs 78.3%, H=9.29, P<0.05). There was no significant differences of LRP5/6 and APC between the two groups (91.5% vs 95.6%, 84.5% vs 77.8%, H=0.622, 1.800, P=0.733, 0.400). The positive expression of Axin was significantly higher in hilar cholangiocarcinoma compared with congenital choledochal cyst (91.4% vs 88.9%, H=6.23, P<0.05).

It shows that the expression of Frizzled and Axin in hilar cholangiocarcinoma is different from that in congenital choledochal cyst by tissue microarray. The two Wnt signaling pathway-related factors may be potentially valuable target for diagnosis or treatment.