The Immunohistochemical expressions and diagnostic values of E-cadherin and β-Catenin in suspected cervical lesion or cervical cancer

Abstract

Background: Cervical lesions are the cellular changes of a pathologic process with a bacterial and viral etiology ranging from cervicitis, cervical intraepithelial neoplasm and invasive cancer. The integrity of the cervical epithelium is maintained by complex cell adhesion molecules. This work is aimed at determining the expression pattern diagnostic value of the adhesion molecules to enhance early detection of cancer. Methods: The study population was from 10 years retrospective archival tissue blocks of cervical cancer among women in Abuja metropolis from 2005 to 2015 Histopathological diagnosis made, from the 80 cases examined 20(25%) cases were cervicitis (CC), 15(18.8%) were cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CINI), 15(18.8%) were cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN2) while 30(37.3%) cases were squamous cell carcinoma SCC. They were examined immunohistochemically by Avidin Biotin Complex (ABC) method. E-Cadherin and Beta-Catenin, (cell adhesion molecules). Results: Statistically significant rate of positivity were found in the expression of β-catenin 100% among all the categories of the studied cases. β-catenin expression was significantly higher in CINI than in SCC, while in E-cadherin, therewere no statistically significant difference (p<0.05) between the distribution of high expression and low expression of E-cadherin in both CINI and SCC. In expression of E-cadherin among the cases studied, there was a significant difference (p<0.05) between rate of positivity and negativity for the expression of E-cadherin. A statistically significant rate of positivity was found in the expression of β-catenin among all the categories of the studied cases. In the expression E-cadherin, there was a gradual decrease in high expression from cervicitis to CINI, CIN2 and SCC. There was Significant (p<0.05) high degree of expression of E-cadherin in cervicitis and CINI against CIN2 and SCC, while a significant (p<0.05) low degree expression of E-cadherin in CIN2 and SCC against Cervicitis and CINI. In β-catenin expression, there as a gradual decrease in high expression from cervicitis to CIN2 and SCC expect in CINI were all had high expression. Conclusion: This study showed that most of the immunological markers examined can be used for identification of different stages involved in cancer progression, also for diagnosis of cancer, predictive prognosis and can be explore as therapy targets for cervicitis and Squamous cell carcinoma.