Expression of CD44 in Preinvasive Disease and Invasive Cancer in Cervix

Park, Jong Hoon; Joo, Jong Gil; Lee, Kook Won; Shin, Byung Sup; Kim, Kee Hyung; Yoon, Man Soo

Abstract

OBJECTIVE
this study was carried out to evaluate the clinicopathologic signigicance of standard & variant isoform CD44-v5, v6 in cervical intraepithelial neoplasia(CIN) and squamous cell carcinoma. METHODS: by means of immunohistochemical staining, standard & variant isoform CD44-v5,v6 expression was investigated in total of 59 patients(24 CIN, 35 cervical squamous cell carcinoma). RESULTS: the positive stainig pattern of standard & variant isform CD44-v5,v6 in normal cervical epithelium was membranous stainig pattern, which was limited to the basal and parabasal layers. The expression of standard CD44 in cervical intraepithelial neoplasia and squamous cell carcinoma was reduced with increasing dysplastic, neoplastic cell transformation. The expression of variant isoform CD44-v5 in cervical intraepithelial neoplasia and squamous cell carcinoma was similar to that of standard CD44, reduced with increasing dysplastic, neoplastic cell transformation. The expression of variant isoform CD44-v6 compared with that of the standard CD44 and variant isoform CD44-v5 was not signigicantly different in all case of this study, but positive staining was seen more often with variant CD44-v6 in squamous cell carcinoma. CONCLUSION: while this results have value in the understanding of the biologic role of standard CD44 and variant isoform CD44-v5,v6 in cervical intraepithelial neoplasia and squamous cell carcinoma, it will need more study because of limited value in a clinical setting.