Expression of galectin-3 in cervical cancer and its clinical significance

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the expression of galectin-3(Gal-3) in cervical cancer tissues and its correlation with clinicopathological and survival variables. Methods: One hundred and seventy-four patients with International Federation of Gynaecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) stage Ⅰ/Ⅱ cervical carcinoma undergoing radical surgery were selected, and their cervical cancer tissues were collected. The expression of Gal-3 protein in cancer tissues was semi-quantitatively tested by tissue microarray and immunohistochemical analysis. Then the correlations of the expression of Gal-3 with the clinicopathological parameters, treatment outcomes and the survival of these patients were evaluated. Results: The positive expression rate of Gal-3 was 54.0%（94/ 174）in the cervical cancer tissues. In a univariate analysis, the positive expression of Gal-3 was closely correlated with non-squamous cell carcinoma (P=0.006), lymph vascular-space invasion (LVSI, P=0.048), deep-muscle invasion (P= 0.001) and pelvic lymph-node metastasis (P＜0.001). The multivariate analysis revealed that the expression of Gal-3 was one of the independent risk factors for predicting pelvic lymph-node metastasis. The risk factors including FIGO stage Ⅱ (P<0.001), LVSI (P=0.013), positive parametrium invasion (P=0.015), pelvic lymph-node metastasis (P<0.001) and the positive expression of Gal-3 (P=0.013) were significantly correlated with poor overall survival in these patients with cervical cancer. The tumor remission rate was lower in patients with up-regulated expression of Gal-3 (39.7%) than that in patients with down-regulated or invariant expression of Gal-3 (70.0%) after receiving preoperative radiotherapy. Conclusion: Positive expression of Gal-3 protein is a predictive factor for pelvic lymph node metastasis and worse overall survival in patients with cervical cancer. Up-regulated expression of Gal-3 protein may be associated with the resistance to radiotherapy. DOI:10.3781/j.issn.1000-7431.2011.02.012