The transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β) superfamily plays an important role in cancer development. One aspect of this is that the transforming growth factor beta receptor III (TGFBR3) is frequently overexpressed in some tumours. However, the role of TGFBR3 in oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) has not been explored as yet. In this study, we aimed to determine the role of TGFBR3 in the development and prognosis of ESCC and the correlation between TGFBR3 expression and Ki-67 and p53. Immunohistochemistry was performed to investigate the expression of TGFBR3 in the tumour tissue microarray consisting of ESCC tissues and matched adjacent normal tissues (n = 80). Only ESCC tissues (n = 20) were also used in our analysis. The association between TGFBR3 expression and clinicopathological characteristics, such as Ki-67 and p53, was analysed by Spearman's rank correlation coefficient analysis. The association between TGFBR3 expression and prognosis of ESCC was analysed using Kaplan-Meier analysis and log-rank tests. The expression levels of TGFBR3 in oesophageal cancer tissues were markedly higher than in matched adjacent normal tissues. Furthermore, TGFBR3 overexpression was significantly associated with tumour-node-metastasis (TNM) stage, lymph node metastasis (N stage) and Ki-67 expression. However, TGFBR3 overexpression was not significantly related to age, sex or p53. In univariate analysis, overall survival of ESCC patients was significantly associated with high TGFBR3 expression, sex, T stage, N stage and TNM stage. Moreover, ESCC patients with high TGFBR3 expression had poorer overall survival than those with low TGFB R3 expression. Our findings showed that TGFBR3 was upregulated in the development of human ESCC and high TGFBR3 expression was associated with high expression of Ki-67 and poor prognosis of ESCC. Therefore, TGFBR3 may be a valuable prognostic marker and a novel therapeutic target for ESCC.
