Expression and significance of vasculogenic mimicry in endometrial carcinoma tissues / 中国肿瘤临床

ABSTRACT

Objective: To investigate the expression of vasculogenic mimicry (VM) in endometrial carcinoma tissues and its rela-tionship with the clinicopathologic features and prognosis of the disease. Methods: A total of 267 paraffin-embedded endometrial carci-noma specimens of patients with complete follow-up data were collected from the Shijiazhuang Bethune International Peace Hospital between January 2005 and June 2014. CD31-PAS dual staining was performed to identify the VM structure. Tissue samples were then divided into VM-positive and VM-negative groups. CD133 expression was detected by immunohistochemical streptavidin peroxidase method. Results: Among the 267 endometrial carcinoma patients, 65 cases (24.3%) were VM positive. VM formation was closely corre-lated with the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics Staging (χ2=9.987, P=0.002), histodifferentiation grade (χ2=11.795, P=0.001), myometrial invasion depth (χ2=5.499, P=0.019), vascular cancer embolus (χ2=22.599, P<0.001), and lymph node me-tastasis (χ2=7.848, P=0.005). Kaplan-Meier survival curve analysis showed that survival time was significantly shorter in the VM-posi-tive group (median survival time was 51 months) than in the VM-negative group (median survival time was 100 months) (χ2=70.973, P<0.001). Moreover, CD133 expression was significantly higher in the VM-positive group [75.4% (49/65)] than in the VM-negative group [58.9% (119/202)] (χ2=5.720, P=0.017). Conclusion: VM is closely correlated with the pathogenesis, development, and malignancy of endometrial carcinoma. Furthermore, VM is one of the important indexes influencing the prognosis of this disease. Therefore, CD133-positive cells may contribute to VM formation.