Expression of Cyclooxygenase-2 in Urothelial Carcinoma of the Human Urinary Bladder / 대한비뇨기과학회지

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: Urinary bladder cancer is the most common tumor of all urologic cancers in Korea. Recent studies have supported the important role of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) in various cancers derived from epithelial cells, such as the breast, gastrointestinal tract, prostate, head and neck. This study was performed to evaluate the relationship between cyclooxygenase-2 expression and prognosis in urothelial carcinoma of the human urinary bladder. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We assessed the clinicopathologic results from 57 bladders of urothelial carcinomas patients who underwent radical cystectomy. To evaluate the expression of COX-2, paraffin sections were assessed with immunohistochemistry using the anti-human COX-2 monoclonal antibody and staining intensity was evaluated. The relationships between COX-2 expressions and stage, grade and lymph node metastasis were statistically analyzed and the association with survival rate was also evaluated. RESULTS: COX-2 was overexpressed in 12 out of the 57 cases (21%) in urothelial carcinomas of the urinary bladder. COX-2 overexpression rate was gradually increased from stage T1 (7.1%) and T2 (31.2%) to stage T3 (50.0%) (p=0.0177) and was increased in high grade urothelial carcinoma (32.3%) compared with that in low grade urothelial carcinoma (7.7%) (p=0.0235). The survival rate of patients with higher stage and high histologic grade was poorer than that of patients with lower stage and low histologic grade (p0.05). CONCLUSIONS: This study showed that COX-2 overexpression was highly correlated with stage and histologic grade in urothelial carcinomas of the human urinary bladder. These results support the possibility that COX-2 might be an important factor related to the aggressive behavior of urothelial carcinoma of the urinary bladder.