Carbonyl reductase as a significant predictor of survival and lymph node metastasis in epithelial ovarian cancer

M Umemoto,S Sato,Y Saito,Y Yokoyama,S Tsuchida,F Al-Mulla

doi:10.1038/sj.bjc.6692034

M Umemoto, S Sato + Show 4 more

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https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bjc.6692034

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Abstract

We have recently reported a novel function for carbonyl reductase (CR), namely, its ability to modulate the metastatic potential of malignant mouse cells. Because there are currently no data addressing a similar function for CR in human cancers, the aim of this study was to assess a correlation between survival and metastasis, and CR level in epithelial ovarian cancer. Using anti-CR antibody, immunohistochemical staining was performed on 73 epithelial ovarian cancers, 13 borderline malignant tumours, and 25 benign ovarian tumours for a total of 111 specimens. The combined rate for strongly and weakly positive reactions for CR was 32.0% for benign tumours, 38.5% for borderline malignant tumours, and 61.6% for ovarian cancers. The CR-positive rate was 35.7% (weakly positive alone) for ovarian cancers with retroperitoneal lymph node (RLN) metastasis and 67.8% for those without RLN metastasis (P< 0.05). The 5-year survival rate was 62.7% for the patients with CR-negative cancer and 86.1% for those with CR-positive cancer (P< 0.05). The present results indicate that decreased CR expression in epithelial ovarian cancer is associated with RLN metastasis and poor survival. © 2001 Cancer Research Campaign http://www.bjcancer.com

Highlights

Survival rates for patients with epithelial ovarian cancer have shown some improvement in the past decade but remain unsatisfactory (Yokoyama et al, 1999)
There was no significant difference in the rates of carbonyl reductase (CR) positivity between samples of benign tumour and borderline malignant tumour
We have recently reported a novel function for CR, namely, its ability to modulate the metastatic potential of malignant mouse cells (Ismail et al, 2000)

Summary

Introduction

Survival rates for patients with epithelial ovarian cancer have shown some improvement in the past decade but remain unsatisfactory (Yokoyama et al, 1999). Accepted clinical and pathological prognostic parameters for epithelial ovarian cancers are stage, histologic subtypes and grades, and residual tumour after cytoreductive surgery (Yokoyama et al, 1999). Biological and genetic parameters, such as macrophage colonystimulating factor (Chambers et al, 1997), vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) (Tempfer et al, 1998), p53 (Werness et al, 1999), and other oncogenes (Silverberg, 1999) have recently been identified as prognostic factors in epithelial ovarian cancers, there is a lack of clinically useful molecular markers for assessing prognosis in ovarian cancer

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