El Badry Amr Ahmed, El-Fadle Amal Abou, El-Balshy Abdel Latif
Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt.
MedGenMed. 2007 Jul 3;9(3):3.
By regulating matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) activity and controlling the breakdown of extracellular matrix components, tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinases (TIMPs) play an important role in the process of tumor invasion and metastasis. The present study was designed to clarify the role of TIMP-2 in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) patients and to evaluate its importance relative to clinicopathologic parameters. It was carried out in 30 patients with NPC and 20 controls. Tissue biopsies were studied and graded pathologically, and Western blot analysis was performed to assess TIMP-2 protein expression. Clinically, in accordance with TNM classification (T: tumor size, N: lymph node involvement, M: distant metastasis), 8 cases were diagnosed as stage II, 12 as stage III, and 10 cases as stage IV; however, pathologic typing with use of the World Health Organization (WHO) classification revealed the presence of 9 specimens of squamous cell carcinoma (WHO type 1), 6 cases of nonkeratinizing carcinoma (WHO type 2), and 15 cases of undifferentiated carcinoma (WHO type 3). The difference in percentage of TIMP-2 positivity between NPC patients (76.6%) and normal controls (30%) was statistically highly significant (P < .01). In addition, there was a significant positive correlation between TIMP-2 protein positivity and either the clinical staging or the histopathologic typing (P < .01) using Chi-square test (x(2)), suggesting that TIMP-2 can be used as a marker of the severity of NPC.Accordingly, we can assume that TIMP-2 may play a role in regional lymph node and/or distant metastasis and in progression of squamous cell carcinoma. Further studies are needed to investigate the role of TIMP-2 as a marker for tumor progression and to evaluate its potential value in the follow-up of patients.
通过调节基质金属蛋白酶（MMP）的活性并控制细胞外基质成分的降解，金属蛋白酶组织抑制剂（TIMP）在肿瘤侵袭和转移过程中发挥重要作用。本研究旨在阐明TIMP-2在鼻咽癌（NPC）患者中的作用，并评估其相对于临床病理参数的重要性。该研究纳入了30例NPC患者和20例对照。对组织活检标本进行病理研究和分级，并进行蛋白质免疫印迹分析以评估TIMP-2蛋白表达。临床上，根据TNM分类（T：肿瘤大小，N：淋巴结受累情况，M：远处转移），8例被诊断为II期，12例为III期，10例为IV期；然而，使用世界卫生组织（WHO）分类进行病理分型显示，存在9例鳞状细胞癌标本（WHO 1型），6例非角化癌（WHO 2型）和15例未分化癌（WHO 3型）。NPC患者（76.6%）和正常对照（30%）之间TIMP-2阳性率的差异具有高度统计学意义（P <.01）。此外，使用卡方检验（x(2)）发现TIMP-2蛋白阳性与临床分期或组织病理学类型之间存在显著正相关（P <.01），这表明TIMP-2可用作NPC严重程度的标志物。因此，我们可以假设TIMP-2可能在区域淋巴结和/或远处转移以及鳞状细胞癌进展中发挥作用。需要进一步研究以探讨TIMP-2作为肿瘤进展标志物的作用，并评估其在患者随访中的潜在价值。
