-Catenin Expression Negatively Correlates with WIF1 and Predicts Poor Clinical Outcomes in Patients with Cervical Cancer.

Aberrant activation of the canonical Wnt pathway plays a significant role in cervical cancer (CC). However, limited data show the correlation between the cancer clinicopathological characteristics and the key molecules such as -catenin and Wnt inhibitory factor 1 (WIF1). In this study, and expression were analyzed by immunohistochemistry for 196 patients with CC, 39 with cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN), and 41 with normal cervical epithelium (NCE). Significant overexpression of was detected in CC (67.9%) when compared to CIN (43.6%) or NCE (34.1%), < 0.01, while low expression was detected in CC (24.0%) when compared to CIN (59.0%) or NCE (58.5%), < 0.001. Negative correlation was shown between and expression ( = -0.637, < 0.001). In addition, multivariate analysis revealed that both lymph node metastasis and expression were the independent prognostic factors not only for disease-free survival (HR = 5.029, < 0.001; HR = 2.588, = 0.035, resp.), but also for overall survival (HR = 5.058, < 0.001; HR = 2.873, = 0.031, resp.). Our findings indicate that, besides lymph node metastasis, -catenin expression may also be a poor prognostic factor for CC while WIF1 could be a potential drug target for treatment of advanced CC.