EMMPRIN expression in oral squamous cell carcinomas: correlation with tumor proliferation and patient survival.

Luís Silva Monteiro,Carlos Lopes,Maria Leonor Delgado,Barbas Do Amaral,José Júlio Pacheco,Hassan Bousbaa,Fernanda Garcez,Sara Ricardo

doi:10.1155/2014/905680

Abstract

The aim of our study was to explore the clinicopathological and prognostic significance of extracellular matrix metalloproteinase inducer (EMMPRIN) expression in oral squamous cell carcinomas (OSCC), and its relation with the proliferative tumor status of OSCC. We examined EMMPRIN and Ki-67 proteins expression by immunohistochemistry in 74 cases with OSCC. Statistical analysis was conducted to examine their clinicopathological and prognostic significance in OSCC. EMMPRIN membrane expression was observed in all cases, with both membrane and cytoplasmic tumor expression in 61 cases (82.4%). EMMPRIN overexpression was observed in 56 cases (75.7%). Moderately or poorly differentiated tumors showed EMMPRIN overexpression more frequently than well-differentiated tumors (P = 0.002). Overexpression of EMMPRIN was correlated with high Ki-67 expression (P = 0.004). In the multivariate analysis, EMMPRIN overexpression reveals an adverse independent prognostic value for cancer-specific survival (CSS) (P = 0.034). Our results reveal that EMMPRIN protein is overexpressed in more than two-thirds of OSCC cases, especially in high proliferative and less differentiated tumors. The independent value of EMMPRIN overexpression in CSS suggests that this protein could be used as an important biological prognostic marker for patients with OSCC. Moreover, the high expression of EMMPRIN makes it a possible therapeutic target in OSCC patients.

Highlights

Oral cancer remains a major public health problem with almost 300,000 new cases worldwide [1, 2]
We aimed to evaluate the expression of extracellular matrix metalloproteinase inducer (EMMPRIN) protein in oral squamous cell carcinomas (OSCC) and to analyse the correlation of this receptor with clinicopathological characteristics, tumor proliferation, and patient’s outcome
Our study showed that EMMPRIN protein was present in all OSCC cases and overexpressed in more than two-thirds of the cases

Summary

Introduction

Oral cancer remains a major public health problem with almost 300,000 new cases worldwide [1, 2]. New insights in cancer diagnosis and therapy have not changed significantly the survival rate for oral cancer (around 50%) during the last decades [1]. Oral tumorigenesis is a multistep process caused by accumulation of multiple genetic and epigenetic alterations [3]. The comprehension of the molecular pathways involved in this process may originate special biological markers able to differentiate tumors with a more or less aggressive behavior. These markers may contribute to identify and stratify patients with greater precision to the most appropriate treatment plan

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