Expression and significance of hypoxia inducible factor-1α and α-smooth-muscle actin in cervical cancer

Abstract

Objective To examine the expression levels of hypoxia inducible factor (HIF)-1α and α-smooth-muscle actin (SMA) in both cervical cancer tissues with concurrent chemoradiotherapy and non-cervical cancer tissues, and assess the clinical significance in cervical cancer. Methods The immune-histochemistry was used to detect HIF-1α and α-SMA in 68 cases of cervical cancer tissues and 56 cases of non-cervical cancer tissues (including normal cervical tissues, hysteromyoma and cervical intraepithelial neoplasias) from January 2013 to January 2014 in the First Affiliated Hospital of Hebei Northern University. Results The positive expression rates of HIF-1α and α-SMA in cervical cancer tissues and non-cervical cancer tissues were 58.8% (40/68), 39.3% (22/56) and 54.4% (37/68), 35.7% (20/56) respectively; the differences were significant statistically (P 0.05). The positive expression of α-SMA was associated with lymph node metastasis (r = 0.363, P = 0.001), abdominal aortic parathyroid lymph node metastasis (r = 0.271, P = 0.020) and SCC-Ag (r = 0.272, P = 0.020), but it was not correlated with age, FIGO stage and tumor size (P>0.05) . The short-term effect rates of concurrent chemoradiotherapy in cervical cancer tissues with positive and negative expression of HIF-1α and α-SMA were 27.5% (11/40), 21.6% (8/37), and 64.3% (18/28) and 48.4% (15/31), and there were statistical differences (P<0.05). The medial follow-up time of 68 cases was 60 months, and the 5-year survival rate was 52.9% (36/68). The 5-year survival rates of the patients with positive expression of HIF-1α and α-SMA were 42.5% (17/40) and 40.5% (15/31), the 5-year survival rates of the patients with negative expression of HIF-1α and α-SMA were 67.9% (19/28) and 67.7% (21/31), and the differences were statistically significant separately (χ2 = 4.091 and 4.573, P = 0.043 and 0.032). Conclusions The elevation of HIF-1α and α-SMA may be used to predict the development and prognosis of cervical cancer with concurrent chemoradiotherapy. Key words: Uterine cervical neoplasms; Concurrent chemoradiotherapy; Hypoxia inducible factor-1 alpha; Alpha-smooth-muscle actin