Korean J Pathol.
2014 Aug;48(4):270-275. 10.4132/KoreanJPathol.2014.48.4.270.
Expression of HuR and Cyclooxygenase-2 in Nodular Fasciitis and Low-Grade Sarcoma: An Immunohistochemical Study
- Affiliations
-
- 1Department of Pathology, Eulji University School of Medicine, Daejeon, Korea. shjpathol@eulji.ac.kr
- KMID: 1719560
- DOI: http://doi.org/10.4132/KoreanJPathol.2014.48.4.270
Abstract
- BACKGROUND
Nodular fasciitis is the most common reactive mesenchymal lesion to be misidentified as a type of sarcoma. HuR is an mRNA-binding protein that can stabilize cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) mRNA leading to COX-2 overexpression. The aim of this study is a comparison of the expressions of COX-2 and HuR and the relationships between their expressions and the clinicopathological parameters in nodular fasciitis and low-grade sarcoma.
METHODS
We measured the expression of HuR and COX-2 in 21 cases of nodular fasciitis and 37 cases of low-grade sarcoma using immunohistochemistry.
RESULTS
The frequency of cytoplasmic immunoreactivity for HuR was 5 of 21 cases of nodular fasciitis (23.8%) and 23 of 37 cases of low-grade sarcoma (62.1%) (p=.013). COX-2 expression was moderate or strong in nodular fasciitis (12/21, 57.1%) and in low-grade sarcoma (29/37, 78.4%) (p=.034). In addition, a significant difference existed between these two entities in terms of the relationship between moderate or strong COX-2 expression and HuR cytoplasmic immunoreactivity (p=.009). Moderate or strong COX-2 immunoreactivity correlated with nuclear (p=.016) or cytoplasmic HuR (p=.024) expression in low-grade sarcoma but not in nodular fasciitis.
CONCLUSIONS
This study suggests that HuR and COX-2 expression may be useful to differentiate nodular fasciitis from low-grade sarcoma.
