Expression and clinical significance of E-cadherin and β-catenin in the vulvar squamous cell carcinoma tissues

Abstract

To investigate the expression of E-cadherin and β-catenin in the Vulvar squamous cell carcinoma (VSCC) tissues. A total of 63 documented paraffin blocks of VSCC (n=41), vulvar intraepithelial neoplasia (n=22), vulvar negative cutting edge tissues (n=10) diagnosed in department of pathology of Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University from January 2005 to April 2012 were enrolled. EliVision immunohistochemical staining was used to detect the expression of E-cadherin and β-catenin in the three groups. Then to do a statistical analysis among the expression of them with patients' menopause status, pathological grade, clinical stage and lymph node metastasis. Spearman correlation analysis was used to analyse the expression of E-cadherin and β-catenin in the vulvar lesion tissues. The abnormal immunoreactivity for E-cadherin [46%(19/41), 64% (14/22)] and β-catenin [61% (25/41), 68% (15/22)] in VSCC and VINII-III were found, which were significantly different from that in normal epithelium samples (P<0.05). The abnormal expression of E-cadherin and β-catenin have no statistically significant difference between VSCC group and VINII-III group (P>0.05). The abnormal expression of E-cadherin and β-catenin were collected with tumor pathological grade and lymph node metastasis status (all P<0.05). The abnormal expression of E-cadherin and β-catenin have no statistically significant difference between menopause and the surgical stage of patients (all P>0.05). The abnormal expression of E-cadherin and β-catenin have a significant positive correlation in the same sample in the VSCC tissue (r=0.543, P=0.000). The abnormal expression of E-cadherin and β-catenin have no correlation in the VINII-III tissue (r=0.295, P=0.182). The abnormal expression of E-cadherin and β-catenin may occurs frequently in the VSCC. The abnormal expression of E-cadherin and β-catenin have correlation with vulvar cancer pathological grade and lymph node metastasis, which may be important mechanisms promoting the invasion and metastasis of VSCC.