Aberrant expression of β-catenin and E-cadherin is correlated with poor prognosis of nasopharyngeal cancer.

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma has a high incidence in southern China. The Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway plays a major role in cancer development and progression. Our current study aims to determine the clinical significance of the Wnt/β-catenin pathway components such as β-catenin, cyclooxygenase 2, cyclin D1, c-Myc, and E-cadherin in 148 nasopharyngeal carcinomas by immunohistochemistry. We found that nasopharyngeal carcinoma stage T3+T4 had significantly higher expression of β-catenin, cyclooxygenase 2, cyclin D1, and c-Myc and lower expression of E-cadherin than nasopharyngeal carcinoma stage T1+T2 (P < .001, P < .05, respectively).There was significantly higher expression of β-catenin (P = .001) and cyclooxygenase 2 (P = .003) and lower expression of E-cadherin (P = .001) in nasopharyngeal carcinoma with lymph node metastasis than in nasopharyngeal carcinoma without lymph node metastasis. The expression of β-catenin in nasopharyngeal carcinoma was positively correlated with cyclooxygenase 2 (r = 0.458, P < .0001), cyclin D1 (r = 0.700, P < .0001), and c-Myc expression (r = 0.144, P = .006) but negatively correlated with E-cadherin expression (r = -0.601, P < .0001), respectively. The univariate analysis confirmed that overexpression of β-catenin and cyclooxygenase 2 and decreased expression of E-cadherin were significantly correlated with disease-free survival (P < .01, P < .05, respectively). Overexpression of β-catenin and cyclooxygenase 2 and reduced expression of E-cadherin significantly correlated with a poor prognosis (P = .005, P = .044, P = .019, respectively) by Kaplan-Meier survival curves and the log-rank test. Multivariate analysis indicated that high expression of β-catenin and decreased expression of E-cadherin were independent prognostic factors (P = .002, P = .011, respectively) regardless of TNM stage and lymph node status. In conclusion, the aberrant high expression of β-catenin and decreased expression of E-cadherin is associated with poor prognosis in nasopharyngeal carcinoma.