Premium
Apoptosis in nasopharyngeal carcinoma as related to histopathological characteristics and clinical stage
Author(s) -
Harn H J,
Hsieh H F,
Ho L I,
Yu C P,
Chen J H,
Chiu C C,
Fan H C,
Lee W H
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
histopathology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.626
H-Index - 124
eISSN - 1365-2559
pISSN - 0309-0167
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-2559.1998.00470.x
Subject(s) - nasopharyngeal carcinoma , apoptosis , stage (stratigraphy) , immunohistochemistry , terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase , pathology , biology , carcinoma , biopsy , tunel assay , medicine , radiation therapy , paleontology , biochemistry
Aims We investigated the significance of apoptosis, using the terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase mediated dUTP‐digoxigenin nick end‐labelling method, in nasopharyngeal carcinoma biopsy samples. Methods and results The apoptotic index (AI) in 50 nasopharyngeal carcinomas was compared with various histopathological features and clinical stage. Also, the AI was correlated with p53, bcl‐2 and Ki67 expression by immunohistochemistry. In histopathological studies, the AI was significantly higher in mixed cellular type (MC) than in keratizing squamous cell type (KS) and spindle cell type (SC) ( P < 0.001) which worsens prognosis. In tumour stage analyses, AI was higher in early stage (stage 2 and 3) than in high stage (stage 4). In addition, there was a significant correlation between the AI and p53 expression ( P < 0.001) but not with proliferative activity ( P = 0.15). In NPC containing p53 protein positive tumour cells, there was a significantly higher apoptotic rate. Conclusions These findings indicate that apoptosis is related to type and stage of nasopharyngeal carcinoma. They also confirm the role of p53 in regulating tumour apoptosis.