Marcadores moleculares de invasión en el cáncer de endometrio

Abstract

E-cadherin is a putative marker of good prognosis in endometrial cancer. Paradoxically, we found in a previous study that E-cadherin in significantly co-expressed in endometrial carcinoma with molecular markers of proliferation, usually associated with a worse prognosis in most tumours. Methods: the expression of oestrogen and progesterone receptors (ER & PR), Ki67, c-erb-B2 p53 and E-cadherin was studied by means of immunohistochemistry in 126 endometrial carcinoma samples. The results were correlated with patient survival and included into a multivariate model, in order to identify those independently associate with the patient outcome. Results: E-cadherin overexpression was associated with a significantly better overall survival in the whole group of endometrial carcinoma patients, as well as in the group of patients harbouring endometrioid tumours exclusively. In the restricted multivariate model, only tumour stage and E-cadherin expression retained their independent prognostic power, both for the whole group of tumours, as well as for the subgroup of endometrioid carcinomas. Conclusion: E-cadherin is an independent predictor of survival in endometrial carcinoma, regardless of the histological variety. Proliferation, on the other hand, does not seem to play a prominent role in this same context. This explains why E-cadherin retains its prognostic power, despite being significantly co-expressed with all tested molecular proliferation markers.