The prognostic significance of overexpression of the decoy receptor for Fas ligand (DcR3) in patients with gastric carcinomas.

Background: The FasL-Fas system has an important role in mediating immune-cytotoxic killing of cells such as virus-infected or tumor cells. It was recently reported that there is a soluble decoy receptor (DcR3), which binds to FasL and inhibits FasL-induced apoptosis, and certain tumors may escape FasL-dependent immune-cytotoxic attack by expressing a decoy receptor that blocks FasL. We evaluated whether DcR3 has clinical relevance in actual human gastric cancers.