[Histopathological and immunohistochemical evaluation of lymph node metastasis in superficial esophageal cancer--with reference to the expression of E-cadherin and alpha-catenin].

We compared node-negative patients (13 cases) with node-positive patients (17 cases) with submucosal cancer of the esophagus, to assess the relationship between clinicopathological factors and lymph node metastasis. We also investigated the expression of E-cadherin, an intercellular adhesion molecule (27 cases), and alpha-catenin, an undercoat protein of adherence junction (16 cases) by immunohistochemical staining to evaluate the association between intercellular adhesiveness and lymph node metastasis in superficial esophageal cancer. There was no significant difference between the node-negative and node-positive groups in other clinicopathological factors and tumor size, while the frequency of lymphatic invasion in the node-positive group was statistically higher than that in the node-negative group (p < 0.05). The frequency of lymph node metastasis in 14 cases with preserved expression of E-cadherin was significantly lower than that in 13 cases with reduced or negative expression (7.1% vs. 46.2%: p < 0.05). Moreover, all three patients with negative expression of alpha-catenin had lymph node metastasis, while only one of 13 patients with preserved or reduced expression of alpha-catenin had lymph node metastasis (100% vs. 7.7%: p < 0.01). In conclusion, we have found that the evaluation of both E-cadherin and alpha-catenin expression might be of great value in predicting lymph node metastasis in superficial esophageal cancer.