Contribution of Immunohistochemistry in Prognostic Assessment of Epithelial Ovarian Carcinoma – Review of the Literature I

High serum HTATIP2/TIP30 level in serous ovarian cancer as prognostic or diagnostic marker

BACKGROUND

Human HIV-1 TAT interactive protein 2 (HTATIP2/TIP30) is an evolutionarily conserved gene that is expressed ubiquitously in human tissues and some tumor tissues. This protein has been found to be associated with some gynecological cancers; as such, this study aimed to investigate blood HTATIP2/TIP30 levels in patients with ovarian cancer.

METHODS

Twenty-three women with ovarian cancer and 18 patients with various non-cancerous gynecological complaints (for example, dysfunctional uterine bleeding, fibroids, and urinary incontinence) were included in the study. The pathological diagnosis of ovarian cancer was adenocarcinoma. HTATIP2/TIP30 concentration in the patients' blood samples was determined using ELISA kits.

RESULTS

The HTATIP2/TIP30 level was significantly higher in the cancer group than in the control group (1.84 ± 0.82 versus 0.57 ± 0.13 ng/ml, mean ± SD).

CONCLUSIONS

We demonstrated the potential role of HTATIP2/TIP30 in ovarian cancer for the first time, thereby enlightening future studies targeting HTATIP2/TIP30 in ovarian cancer treatment, diagnosis, and prevention.

Predictive and prognostic protein biomarkers in epithelial ovarian cancer: recommendation for future studies

Epithelial ovarian cancer is the most lethal gynecological malignancy. Due to its lack of symptoms, this disease is diagnosed at an advanced stage when the cancer has already spread to secondary sites. While initial rates of response to first treatment is >80%, the overall survival rate of patients is extremely low, mainly due to development of drug resistance. To date, there are no reliable clinical factors that can properly stratify patients for suitable chemotherapy strategies. Clinical parameters such as disease stage, tumor grade and residual disease, although helpful in the management of patients after their initial surgery to establish the first line of treatment, are not efficient enough. Accordingly, reliable markers that are independent and complementary to clinical parameters are needed for a better management of these patients. For several years, efforts to identify prognostic factors have focused on molecular markers, with a large number having been investigated. This review aims to present a summary of the recent advances in the identification of molecular biomarkers in ovarian cancer patient tissues, as well as an overview of the need and importance of molecular markers for personalized medicine in ovarian cancer.

Prognostic significance of CD3+ tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes in ovarian carcinoma

OBJECTIVE

Epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) is the most common cause of death among gynecological malignancies in Europe and North America. Although the presence of tumor-infiltrating mononuclear cells has been documented in EOC, the association of tumor-infiltrating mononuclear cells with clinical outcome remains controversial. The aim of the present study was to investigate the prognostic significance of CD3+ tumor-infiltrating T lymphocytes (TIL) on overall survival of EOC patients.

METHODS

We evaluated retrospectively by immunohistochemistry the distribution of CD3+ TIL in tumor specimens of 116 EOC patients. The expression of estrogen and progesterone receptors, Ki-67, DNA topoisomerase IIalpha, p21, p53, HER-2/neu, bax and bcl-2 was also evaluated by immunohistochemistry. The prognostic significance of CD3+ TIL and other immunohistochemical and clinical parameters was evaluated with log-rank test. Multivariate analysis was performed using the Cox regression.

RESULTS

CD3+ TIL were observed in all tumor samples, both in cancer stroma and within cancer epithelium (intraepithelial TIL). The median counts of stromal TIL and intraepithelial TIL were 338 lymphocytes/mm2 (range 81-2094 lymphocytes/mm2) and 125 lymphocytes/mm2 (range 7-481 lymphocytes/mm2), respectively. In univariate analysis, age, stage, grade, presence of residual tumor, expression of progesterone receptors, Ki-67, DNA topoisomerase IIalpha and intraepithelial CD3+ TIL count were significant predictors of overall survival. On multivariate analysis, only the presence of residual tumor, stage, expression of progesterone receptors and intraepithelial CD3+ TIL count were found to be significant independent predictors of overall survival.

CONCLUSION

Present data indicate that the intraepithelial CD3+ TIL count is a significant prognostic factor in EOC.