European Journal of Gynaecological Oncology (EJGO) is published by IMR Press from Volume 40 Issue 1 (2019). Previous articles were published by another publisher on a subscription basis, and they are hosted by IMR Press on imrpress.com as a courtesy and upon agreement with S.O.G.
Expression of E-cadherin in squamous cell carcinomas of the cervix with correlations to clinicopathological features
Objective: To evaluate the expression of E-cadherin, a calcium-dependent cell adhesion molecule, in a retrospective analysis of paraffin-embedded tissue specimens of cervical squamous carcinoma and the relationship with histopathological differentiation and lymph node status. Methods: In this study, we investigated by immunohistochemistry E-cadherin expression in ten normal cervical epithelia and 24 cervical invasive squamous carcinomas. Results: Normal cervical squamous epithelium showed strong expression of E-cadherin at the membrane of the cell and intercellular junctions. In 24 tumors immunnostained by E-cadherin antibody, 11 (46%) showed preserved expression and 13 (54%) reduced expression. There was no significant correlation between E-cadherin expression and histological differentiation (p = 0.650, p = 0.294). In the status of lymph node metastasis, reduced expression of E-cadherin was seen in I 1/15 (73%) with lymph node metastasis versus 2/9 (22%) without lymph node metastasis. There was a significant inverse correlation between E-cadherin expression and lymph node metastasis (p = 0.032). Conclusion: Reduced E-cadherin expression may be an important factor among a variety of biologic events that occur during the process of metastasis. However, this should be explored by a large scale study.