Abstract
BackgroundMyoepithelial carcinoma is a rare tumour. The clinical and biological behaviours of these tumours are variable. Although many factors have been evaluated as potential prognostic indicators, including clinical stage, site and size of the tumour, high proliferative activity, extensive invasion into the surrounding tissue, perineural permeation, the abnormal presence of nuclear DNA content, and marked cellular pleomorphism, there are no definite histological features that clearly correlate with their behaviour. Thus, conclusions regarding prognostic factors and ideal treatment may emerge as the number of investigated myoepithelial carcinoma cases accumulate.MethodsUsing immunohistochemistry, expression levels of p63 and Ki-67 were determined in 16 myoepithelial carcinoma samples and correlated with clinicopathological characteristics and patient prognosis.Resultsp63 expression was detected in six of the myoepithelial carcinoma tissues (37.5%) and Ki-67 was detected in five (31.3%). In addition, p63 and Ki-67 expression levels were associated with myoepithelial carcinoma recurrence and metastasis. All six patients with p63-positive expression died due to disease or cardiovascular disease (mean survival time = 50.5 months), and p63 expression was statistically significant with respect to survival (P = 0.01). Four patients with Ki-67-positive expression died due to disease or cardiovascular disease (mean survival time = 44.0 months); however, there was no statistically significant difference between Ki-67 expression and survival (P = 0.24).ConclusionsRecurrence and metastasis in myoepithelial carcinomas are more frequent in p63-positive and Ki-67-positive EMCs, and poor prognosis is associated with overexpression of p63.
Highlights
Some studies have shown that p63 expression is a good prognostic marker for patients with human urothelial carcinoma [9], but is not an independent prognostic factor for overall survival of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma [10]
Other reports have found that p63-positive cases had a worse prognosis in patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma [11], adenoid cystic carcinoma of the salivary gland [12], and Merkel cell carcinoma [13]
We found most Myoepithelial carcinoma (MEC) were positive for S-100 protein (81.3%), whereas nearly half were immunoreactive for glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) (46%), a reactivity profile similar to previously reported result [2]
Summary
Many factors have been evaluated as potential prognostic indicators, including clinical stage, site and size of the tumour, high proliferative activity, extensive invasion into the surrounding tissue, perineural permeation, the abnormal presence of nuclear DNA content, and marked cellular pleomorphism, there are no definite histological features that clearly correlate with their behaviour. Many factors have been evaluated as potential prognostic indicators, including clinical stage, site and size of the tumour, high proliferative p63 is a p53-related DNA-binding protein that helps regulate differentiation and proliferation in epithelial progenitor cells [8]. Some studies have shown that p63 expression is a good prognostic marker for patients with human urothelial carcinoma [9], but is not an independent prognostic factor for overall survival of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma [10]. There are scant data on the association between p63 expression and the prognosis of MEC
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