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Prognostic relevance of hypoxia inducible factor‐1α expression in patients with melanoma
Author(s) -
Valencak J.,
Kittler H.,
Schmid K.,
Schreiber M.,
Raderer M.,
GonzalezInchaurraga M.,
Birner P.,
Pehamberger H.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
clinical and experimental dermatology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.587
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1365-2230
pISSN - 0307-6938
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2230.2009.03706.x
Subject(s) - medicine , immunohistochemistry , melanoma , breslow thickness , multivariate analysis , univariate analysis , oncology , hypoxia (environmental) , survival analysis , univariate , pathology , retrospective cohort study , clinical significance , cancer , cancer research , multivariate statistics , sentinel lymph node , chemistry , statistics , mathematics , organic chemistry , breast cancer , oxygen
Summary Overexpression of hypoxia inducible factor (HIF)‐1α has been found in several human cancers and is thought to correlate with aggressive disease and poor response. A retrospective analysis was carried out on 89 patients with primary cutaneous melanoma. HIF‐1α expression was assessed by immunohistochemistry in formalin‐fixed, paraffin wax‐embedded tumour sections. Overall survival (OS) and disease‐free survival (DFS) were determined using univariate and multivariate analyses. Of the 89 patients, 78 (87.6%) expressed HIF‐1α, and the remaining 11 patients (12.4%) did not. HIF‐1α expression correlated with age ( P = 0.002), but not with the main predictive factors in melanoma. Survival analysis disclosed no difference between the groups for OS and DFS. In multivariate analysis, only Breslow Index and ulceration were significantly associated with poor OS. Our results indicate that HIF‐1α overexpression is present in most primary melanomas, but is not associated with clinicopathological variables, patient prognosis or survival.