| Immunohistochemical Study to Evaluate the Prognostic Significance of Four Biomolecular Markers in Radiotherapy of Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma |
| Yeon Joo Kim, Seung Hee Lee, Hong Gyun Wu, Heounjeong Go, Yoon Kyung Jeon |
1Department of Radiation Oncology, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea. wuhg@snu.ac.kr
2Department of Pathology, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
3Cancer Research Institute, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
4Institute of Radiation Medicine, Medical Research Center, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea. |
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| ABSTRACT |
PURPOSE:
We performed an immunohistochemical study with pre-treatment biopsy specimens to evaluate the prognostic significance of four biomolecular markers which can be used as a predictive assay for radiotherapy (RT) treatment of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC).
MATERIALS AND METHODS:
From January 1998 through December 2006, 68 patients were histologically diagnosed as non-metastatic NPC and treated by RT. Only 38 patients had the paraffin block for the immunohistochemical study.
Thirty-one patients had undifferentiated carcinoma and 7 patients had squamous cell carcinoma. Thirty-two patients (84%) had advanced stage NPC (2002 AJCC Stage III~IV).
Immunohistochemical staining was performed for Met, COX-2, nm23-H1, and epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) expression using routine methods.
RESULTS:
The median follow-up time was 30 months (range, 11 to 83 months) for all patients, and 39 months (range, 19 to 83 months) for surviving patients. The 5-year overall survival (OS) rate of the patients with high Met extent (> or =50%) was significantly lower than that of the patients with low Met extent (48% vs. 84%, p=0.02). In addition, Met extent was also a significant prognostic factor in multivariate analysis (p=0.01). No correlation was observed between Met extent and T stage, N stage, stage group, gender, age, and the response to chemotherapy or RT. Met extent showed moderate correlation with COX-2 expression (Pearson coefficient 0.496, p<0.01), but COX-2 expression did not affect OS. Neither nm23-H1 or EGFR expression was a prognostic factor for OS in this study.
CONCLUSION:
High Met extent (> or =50%) might be an independent prognostic factor that predicts poor OS in NPC treated with RT. |
| Key Words:
Nasopharyngeal carcinoma, Radiotherapy, Prognostic factor, Immunohistochemical staining, Met |
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