Heeren Pierre, Plukker John, van Dullemen Hendrik, Nap Raoul, Hollema Harry
Department of Surgery/Surgical Oncology, University Hospital of Groningen, P.O. Box 30001, 9700 RB Groningen, The Netherlands.
Cancer Lett. 2005 Jul 28;225(2):283-9. doi: 10.1016/j.canlet.2004.11.046. Epub 2004 Dec 25.
Cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) is involved in esophageal carcinogenesis, but its clinical significance is not clarified yet. The association of several clinicopathological parameters with the immunohistochemical expression of COX-2 was analyzed in paraffin-embedded esophageal cancer specimens. In adenocarcinomas, COX-2 upregulation showed to be a late event and in a multivariate analysis it was associated independently with a reduced survival after surgery compared with low COX-2 expressed tumors (P=0.02). Although, the expression was extensively high in well-differentiated parts of squamous cell carcinoma, it was not related with a poor outcome. This study supports further investigation of selective COX-2 inhibitors in these tumors.
