Expression of catenins and cyclin D1 in poorly differentiated squamous cell carcinoma of nasopharynx and their potentially clinical significance

Background and purpose:Studies have shown that some molecular markers could serve as prognostic factors for nasopharynx carcinoma, but the predictive role of catenins and cyclin D1 remains uncertain for the disease. Our paper is to investigate the expression of catenins(α-,β- and γ-) and cyclin D1 in nasopharyngeal carcinoma as well as to analysis their relation to clinic factors and prognosis. Methods:We retrieved 38 paraffin-embedded specimens of nasopharynx carcinoma, immunohistochemistry was used to examine the expression of α-,β- and γ-catenin , cyclin D1 and tumor proliferation activity marker ki-67.Results:Reduced expression of α-,β- ,γ-catenin and cyclin D1 was observed in most of the tumors. Our preliminary study demonstrated that there was no significant correlation between their expression with T-stage, N-stage, clinical stage and primary tumor volume, as well as with ki-67 stain. In unviarance analysis, patients with reduced expression of β-catenin had poorer prognosis than those with high expression, 5 year overall survival and disease free survival rates of these two groups were 53.2%, 29.0% and 81.9%, 76.0%, respectively(P0.05). The significance of different expression of α-catenin was marginal(P=0.061) when analyzing its impact on disease free survival rate.Conclusions:There are abnormal expression of α-,β- ,γ-catenin and cyclin D1 in nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Our preliminary result shows that no significant correlation is found between their expression and tumor proliferation, clinical stage and metastasis. Reduced expression of β- catenin might be a negative prognostic factor in terms of survival rates. More cases should be further analyzed to clarify the issue.