HLA-antigen association with cancer cervix: prognostic and genetic values

ABSTRACT

The present study was carried out on 26 patients with cancer cervix of various grades and histological types to investigate the possible association of HLA-A, HLA-B and HLA-DR in sera and paraffin embedded sections prepared from tumor tissue. Significant increase in frequency of HLA-B7, B14 and HLA-DR7 was detected in patient's sera compared to those of controls. HLA-DR antigen was expressed in tumor tissue in majority of patients. The intensity of immune expression varied inversely with the survival of patients and varied inversely with the degree of tumor differentiation and proportionally with the severity of associating immuno-competent cellular infiltrate. Despite the relatively little number of studied patient our data confirms an immuno-genetic base in susceptibility to the disease and points to HLA-antigen expression in tumor tissue as a negatively influencing factor, not to be forgotten during evaluating the prognosis of patients with cancer cervix