Russo Daniela, Varricchio Silvia, Ilardi Gennaro, Martino Francesco, Di Crescenzo Rosa Maria, Pignatiello Sara, Scalvenzi Massimiliano, Costa Claudia, Mascolo Massimo, Merolla Francesco, Staibano Stefania
Pathology Unit, Department of Advanced Biomedical Sciences, University of Naples "Federico II", Naples, Italy.
Dermatology Unit, Department of Clinical Medicine and Surgery, University of Naples "Federico II", Naples, Italy.
Front Oncol. 2021 Mar 25;11:659332. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2021.659332. eCollection 2021.
Basal cell carcinoma (BCC) is the most common cancer in the white-skinned population accounting for about 15% of all neoplasms. Its incidence is increasing worldwide, at a rate of about 10% per year. BCC, although infrequently metastasizing, very often causes extensive tissue losses, due to the high propensity toward stromal infiltration, particularly in its dedifferentiated forms, with disfiguring and debilitating results. To date, there still is limited availability of therapeutic treatments alternative to surgery. We evaluated the immunohistochemical expression of the carbonic anhydrase IX (CAIX), one of the main markers of tissue hypoxia, in a set of 85 archived FFPE BCC tissues, including the main subtypes, with different clinical outcomes, to demonstrate a possible relationship between hypoxic phenotype and biological aggressiveness of these neoplasms. Our results showed that the expression level of the CAIX protein contributes to the stratification of BCC in the different risk classes for recurrence. We hypothesize for CAIX a potential therapeutic role as a target therapy in the treatment of more aggressive BCCs, thus providing an alternative to surgical and pharmacological therapy with Hedgehog inhibitors, a promising example of target therapy in BCCs.
基底细胞癌（BCC）是白种人群中最常见的癌症，约占所有肿瘤的15%。其发病率在全球范围内呈上升趋势，每年约增长10%。BCC虽然很少发生转移，但由于其对基质浸润的高度倾向，特别是在其去分化形式中，常常导致广泛的组织损失，造成毁容和功能丧失的后果。迄今为止，除手术外的治疗方法仍然有限。我们评估了碳酸酐酶IX（CAIX）这一组织缺氧的主要标志物之一在一组85例存档的FFPE BCC组织中的免疫组化表达，这些组织包括主要亚型，具有不同的临床结局，以证明这些肿瘤的缺氧表型与生物学侵袭性之间可能存在的关系。我们的结果表明，CAIX蛋白的表达水平有助于将BCC分层为不同的复发风险类别。我们推测CAIX作为一种潜在的治疗靶点，在治疗侵袭性更强的BCC中具有治疗作用，从而为手术和使用刺猬蛋白抑制剂的药物治疗提供了一种替代方案，刺猬蛋白抑制剂是BCC靶向治疗的一个有前景的例子。
