Mattijssen V, Peters H M, Schalkwijk L, Manni J J, van 't Hof-Grootenboer B, de Mulder P H, Ruiter D J
Department of Medicine, University Hospital Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Int J Cancer. 1993 Oct 21;55(4):580-5. doi: 10.1002/ijc.2910550411.
The cell-cell adhesion molecule E-cadherin has been shown to suppress invasive growth of epithelial cells in vitro, and loss of its expression is thought to be important in invasion and metastatic potential of epithelial tumors in vivo. We retrospectively studied the level of E-cadherin expression in 50 primary head and neck squamous-cell carcinomas (HNSCC) by immunohistochemical methods, on frozen sections, using anti-E-cadherin monoclonal antibody (MAb) 6F9. It concerned patients with different stages of carcinoma of larynx or oral cavity who had been treated with curative intention 30 months or more before. Percentages of membranous stained tumor cells were scored in 1 of 5 categories. Scores were generally low, as in 11/50 lesions < or = 5% cells were stained, and in 19/50 lesions only 6-25% cells showed membranous staining. In 9 lymph-node metastases evaluated, E-cadherin expression was in the same range as in the primary tumors. There was a significant correlation between the level of membranous E-cadherin expression in the primary tumor and the degree of differentiation. No relation was found with tumor size (pT) or regional lymph-node classification (pN). Nevertheless, 29 patients surviving > or = 30 months without evidence of disease had significantly higher levels of membranous E-cadherin expression in their primary tumors than 10 patients with unfavorable clinical course clearly related to recurrent and/or metastatic HNSCC. Moreover, this could only partially be explained by distinctions in differentiation grade between both groups. Our results suggest that membranous E-cadherin expression has prognostic importance in patients with HNSCC.
细胞间黏附分子E-钙黏蛋白已被证明在体外可抑制上皮细胞的侵袭性生长，其表达缺失被认为在上皮肿瘤的体内侵袭和转移潜能中起重要作用。我们采用免疫组织化学方法，在冰冻切片上使用抗E-钙黏蛋白单克隆抗体（MAb）6F9，回顾性研究了50例原发性头颈部鳞状细胞癌（HNSCC）中E-钙黏蛋白的表达水平。研究对象为喉癌或口腔癌不同分期的患者，他们在30个月或更早之前接受了根治性治疗。将膜染色肿瘤细胞的百分比分为5类中的1类进行评分。评分普遍较低，如在50个病变中有11个病变中≤5%的细胞被染色，在50个病变中有19个病变中只有6-25%的细胞显示膜染色。在评估的9个淋巴结转移灶中，E-钙黏蛋白的表达与原发性肿瘤处于同一范围。原发性肿瘤中膜性E-钙黏蛋白的表达水平与分化程度之间存在显著相关性。未发现与肿瘤大小（pT）或区域淋巴结分类（pN）有关。然而，29例存活≥30个月且无疾病证据的患者，其原发性肿瘤中膜性E-钙黏蛋白的表达水平明显高于10例临床病程不佳且明显与复发性和/或转移性HNSCC相关的患者。此外，这只能部分由两组之间分化程度的差异来解释。我们的结果表明，膜性E-钙黏蛋白的表达在HNSCC患者中具有预后意义。
