Pair box (PAX8) protein to predict disease recurrence and its association with outcome in women with endometrial cancer: A retrospective study of 229 patients.

Abstract

5091 Background: Pax-8 is a member of the pair-box (PAX) family of transcription factor genes and it has been found to be overexpressed in numerous cancer cell lines including ovarian and endometrial. Possibly, inhibition of Pax8 activity may even have an impact on cancer treatment. However the role of Pax8 in human endometrial cancer has not yet been explored. Thus, the aim of this study is to determine its predictive value in disease outcome of endometrial cancer. Methods: 229 patients with available clinical data and paraffin-embedded tissue were available for review and analysis. The clinical parameters used for modeling were age, histologic subtypes, myometrial depth of invasion, lympho-vascular invasion (LVI), FIGO grade, lymph nodes positive, recurrence, disease status, recurrence time and survival time. To test the association between Pax8 and the clinical parameters, Fisher’s exact test was performed. For survival analysis, Kaplan-Meier method was performed. Results: We found a strong association between PAX8+ and high tumor grade (p=0.002), LVI + (p<0.018), and type II tumor subtype. Patients with tumor expressing Pax8 were more likely to present with shorter OS and DFS p= 0.00096 and p=0.018 respectively. There was an association of PAX8 with OS (p=0.01486) with 5-years OS probability of 80.04% for patients with Pax8- and 55.9% for patients with Pax8+. There was also an association of PAX8 and DFS probability (p=0.02028) with 5-years DFS probability was of 72.12% for patients with Pax8- versus 49.88% for patients with Pax8+ expression. Conclusions: Pax8 is a reliable marker in endometrial cancer and its overexpression can predict poor outcome.