Premium
Apoptosis as an independent prognostic indicator in squamous cell carcinoma of the esophagus
Author(s) -
Shibata Hiroshi,
Matsubara Osamu
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
pathology international
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.73
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1440-1827
pISSN - 1320-5463
DOI - 10.1046/j.1440-1827.2001.01234.x
Subject(s) - apoptosis , tunel assay , terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase , pathology , esophagus , carcinoma , lymphovascular invasion , lymph node , medicine , perineural invasion , biology , cancer research , metastasis , immunohistochemistry , cancer , biochemistry
Apoptosis plays a crucial role in determining net cell proliferation and cell turnover in various tumors. The rate of apoptosis in tumor cells has been reported to be a useful prognostic indicator in colorectal carcinoma. We examined apoptosis in 72 specimens of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, by the terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase (TdT)‐mediated deoxyuridine triphosphate (dUTP) digoxigenin–nick end labeling (TUNEL) method. We examined correlation of apoptosis with outcome, clinicopathological features, and expression of the apoptosis‐related proteins p53 and Bcl‐2. The percentage of apoptotic cells, or apoptotic index (AI), ranged from 0.8 to 9.4 (mean: 3.47; SD: 2.02). Overall, 5‐year survival of patients with high AI (AI ≥ 5.0; n = 18) tumors was significantly higher than that of patients with low AI tumors (AI < 5.0; n = 58; 76.9% versus 44.9%; P = 0.042). AI did not correlate significantly with the clinicopathological features of patient age and sex, depth of tumor and histological differentiation, lymph node metastasis, lymphatic invasion, or venous invasion. In p53‐negative tumors, the AI was significantly higher than in p53‐positive tumors. We concluded that AI may be a useful prognostic indicator in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma following curative surgery, and that apoptosis in this tumor is related to relative underexpression of p53 protein.