Cathepsin D expression in the tumor cells and juxta-tumoral stromal cells of T1 invasive ductal carcinoma, Nos / 한국유방암학회지

INTRODUCTION: Cathepsin D (CD) is a lysosomal protease that can be used as an important prognostic cytosolic factor for breast cancer. Its over-expression in breast cancer cells and in the host stromal cells in the tumor has been proposed as being a poor prognostic indicator. However, its prognostic value is still being debated. Therefore, CD expression needs to be examined in more relevant subsets of tissue in order to refine its prognostic significance and the clinical applications. METHODS: Regardless of the lymph node status, 110 T1 invasive ductal carcinomas of the breast were immunohistochemically evaluated for the CD expression using rabbit anti-cathepsin D monoclonal antibody. This study separately assessed the expression of CD in the invasive component (IDC), in the in situ component (DCIS), and in the juxtatumoral stromal cells (JTSC). The CD expression level in these three kinds of tissues were correlated with the nuclear grade, ER, PR, c-erb-B2, p53, the N stage, the T stage, and the 5 year metastasis-free survival. RESULTS: Positive CD expression in the JTSC was associated with the T stage (p = 0.001) and the N stage (p = 0.029), whereas positive CD expression in the DCIS and IDC was not. In addition, strong CD expression in the JTSC correlated with the nuclear grade of the invasive component (p = 0.024). In all three components, no statistically significant correlation was found between the biomarker (ER, PR, cerb-B2, p53) and the CD expression. On univariate analysis, positive expression in the JTSC was correlated with a poor 5 year- metastasis free survival (p = 0.007), but the positive expression in the IDC and DCIS was not. CONCLUSION: CD expression of the JTSC could represent the N stage, the T stage, and the nuclear grade of T1 IDC. Whether or not it would have an independent influence on the prognosis of T1 IDC, CD expression in the JTSC is probably an indicator of the tumor virulence. CD expression in the JTSC will provide an important clue for the development of new CD targeted therapies, and it will serve as an important criterion for selecting the appropriate candidates for these future targeted therapies.

Significance of Cathepsin-D Expression in Uterine Cervical Neoplasia / 대한부인종양콜포스코피학회잡지

Various clinical and histopathologic characteristics are currently used to obtain prognostic information about cervical carcinoma, but they do not predict accurately the outcome for any individual patients. Thus, there is a need to identify additional tumor characteristics that are able to predict more accurately the outcome for an individual patient with cervical cancer. In this study, we explored the relationship between cathepsin-D expression and progression of the cervical neoplasia, the correlation between response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy and cathepsin-D expression, and we investigated if tumor cell cathepsin-D expression could serve as a prognostic factor in cervical carcinoma. Tumor tissues were obtained from 14 patients with cervical intraepithelial neoplasia and 52 patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the cervix. Cathepsin-D expression was identified by immunohistochemical methods using monoclonal antibody cathepsin-D (BioGene). Positive cathepsin-D immunoreaction in greater than 30% of carcinoma cells was scored as high expression High cathepsin-D expression was seen in 15 of 52 invasive cervical cancer but was absent in cervical intraepithelial neoplasia. It was shown that cathepsin-D expression was independent of the tumor grade, tumor size, lymph node involvement, depth of invasion, parametrial invasion, and response to chemotherapy. In disease free survival analysis by log-rank test, cathepsin-D expression was not significantly associated with survival. These results show that cathepsin-D expression is not a clinically useful adjunct to assessment of prognosis in invasive squamous cell carcinoma of the cervix.