Abstract 4917: CD44 standard form expression in human ovarian carcinoma is correlated with disease progression but not prognosis.

Abstract

Abstract Single-chain glycoprotein CD44 is a major cell surface receptor for hyaluronan and mediates epithelial cell adhesion by its involvement in cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions. Recently, CD44 has been identified as a biomarker of cancer stem cells in many malignancies, including ovarian carcinoma. However, its clinical significance in human ovarian carcinoma has been controversial until recently. The aim of our current study was to clarify the clinical role of CD44 expression in ovarian carcinoma. Immunohistochemical staining of 483 human primary ovarian carcinoma, and 27 paired primary and recurrent ovarian carcinoma samples for CD44 standard form (CD44s) was performed using tissue microarray. The associations between CD44s expression and clinical factors (diagnosis, tumor grade, International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics stage, and response to chemotherapy) and overall and disease-free survivals were analyzed. We observed CD44s expression in 38.1% of the ovarian carcinoma samples. Results of Fisher's exact test suggested that CD44s expression was associated with high-grade carcinoma (P = 0.013), especially high-grade serous carcinoma (P = 0.037); International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics stage (III-IV, P < 0.001); age at diagnosis less than 60 years old (P = 0.011); and transitional cell carcinoma (P = 0.039). However, CD44s expression was not associated with overall survival (P = 0.529) or disease-free survival (P = 0.035) by the log-rank test. Moreover, there was no statistical difference in CD44s expression between the primary and recurrent epithelial ovarian carcinomas. Our results showed that CD44s expression is correlated with tumor progression but not prognosis. Citation Format: Jing Zhang, Bin Chang, Jinsong Liu. CD44 standard form expression in human ovarian carcinoma is correlated with disease progression but not prognosis. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 104th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2013 Apr 6-10; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2013;73(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 4917. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2013-4917