The Clinicopathologic Significance of the Epithelial Mesenchymal Transition in the Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma by Immunohistochemistry

초록

Background: In many studies, the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) related biomarkers were significantly correlated with prognostic factors. We assessed the correlation between the expression of the several biomarkers related with EMT and the clinicopathologic parameters in variable subsites of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). Methods: The paraffinized tissue samples from 146 patients who treated by elective surgical resection for HNSCC were made in tissue microarray, and the expression of the E-cadherin, β-catenin, vimentin, and Enhancer of zeste homolog 2 (EZH2) was evaluated by immunohistochemistry. Results: The E-cadherin negative group showed more poorly differentiated cancer cells and low survival rate (p = 0.016 and p = 0.020) and the high expression of EZH2 was significantly correlated with the presence of nodal metastasis, extracapsular extension of metastatic tumor in lymph node, and involvement of resection margin in surgical resection (p = 0.024, p =0.001, and p = 0.003, respectively). But, all these markers were not significantly associated with patient’s survival by the Kaplan-Meier survival curves and Cox regression analysis. Conclusions: The expression of EZH2 is significantly related with prognostic factors of HNSCC such as lymph node metastasis, extracapsular extension and margin status.