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Nuclear expression of N‐cadherin correlates with poor prognosis of nasopharyngeal carcinoma
Author(s) -
Luo WeiRen,
Wu AiBing,
Fang WeiYi,
Li SiYi,
Yao KaiTai
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
histopathology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.626
H-Index - 124
eISSN - 1365-2559
pISSN - 0309-0167
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2559.2012.04212.x
Subject(s) - nasopharyngeal carcinoma , cadherin , tissue microarray , stage (stratigraphy) , immunohistochemistry , pathology , univariate analysis , carcinoma , medicine , oncology , biology , multivariate analysis , cell , radiation therapy , paleontology , genetics
Luo W‐R, Wu A‐B, Fang W‐Y, Li S‐Y & Yao K‐T (2012) Histopathology 61, 237–246 Nuclear expression of N‐cadherin correlates with poor prognosis of nasopharyngeal carcinoma Aims: To investigate the aberrant expression of N‐cadherin in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) and its prognostic significance. Methods and results: Immunohistochemical staining for N‐cadherin protein was performed on tissue microarray (TMA) from 122 NPC patients. Cytoplasmic N‐cadherin was observed in 42.6% and nuclear N‐cadherin in 45.1% of NPC tissues. High expression of cytoplasmic and nuclear N‐cadherin was associated with a majority of the clinicopathological variables, including lymph node metastasis, distant metastasis and clinical stage. Cytoplasmic N‐cadherin was associated positively with nuclear N‐cadherin expression ( P = 0.000). In univariate analysis, cytoplasmic N‐cadherin showed no significant impact on patient prognosis. In contrast, the overall survival was significantly shorter in patients with high nuclear N‐cadherin than those with low levels of staining ( P = 0.002). A high expression of nuclear N‐cadherin predicted poorer survival in patients with late stage disease ( P = 0.033), but not those with early tumour stage. In addition, multivariate analysis showed nuclear N‐cadherin to bean independent prognostic marker for NPC patients ( P = 0.024). Conclusions: Nuclear N‐cadherin expression may represent a valuable prognostic marker in NPC patients, especially those with late stage disease.