TWIST AND E-CADHERIN IMMUNOEXPRESSION IN ACTINIC CHEILITES

Abstract

Objective To investigate the immunohistochemical expression of TWIST and E-cadherin in actinic cheilitis (AC). Study Design The immunohistochemical expression of TWIST and E-cadherin was analyzed in 86 cases of AC with varying degrees of epithelial dysplasia. The epithelial immunostaining was semi-quantitatively evaluated according to the scores: (1) 75% positive cells. Median comparisons of E-cadherin and TWIST expression scores according to histologic grade were performed using the nonparametric Mann-Whitney test. Results Analysis of TWIST and E-cadherin expression in the AC epithelium revealed membrane and cytoplasmic immunoreactivity for E-cadherin in all epithelial layers except in the keratin layer. For TWIST, nuclear and cytoplasmic immunoreactivity were observed in all epithelial layers except in the keratin layer. No statistically significant differences were observed in the medians of the E-cadherin and TWIST scores in relation to the histologic grade of the AC (P > .05). Conclusions The results of this study suggest that the high immunoexpression of TWIST and E-cadherin has been observed in cases of AC; however, these proteins do not appear to be associated with the varying degrees of epithelial dysplasia in the analyzed cases.