Expression Of COX-2 In Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma And Its Relationship To Expression Of Survivin And Caspase-3

Background: nasopharyngeal carcinoma is the most common one of malignant tumor in head and neck. According to WHO statistics, 80% of them happened in my country. COX-2 is the rate-limiting enzyme of prostaglandin, concerned with prostaglandin synthetical and played an essential role in many tumors' genesis, growth and lymp nodes metastasis. To the date, Prevous studied had demonstrated the association between COX-2 and NPC, The abnormal Apoptosis induced by COX-2 played an essential role in NPC genesis. Effector cell death protease cascade activation is core mechanisms of Apoptosis. The key point is the Caspase3, Activated caspase. Up to now, Survivin is the most intense inhibiting factor of apoptosis, it is the key role in accommodating apoptosis. In the study , we examined the expression of COX-2,Survivin Caspase3 in the 56 cases of NPC and analyzed the relation between expression of COX-2 and clinical information, Survivin, Caspase3. we want to evaluate the expression of COX-2 in NPC and the role in inhibiting apoptosis.Materials and Methods : We obtained 56 nasopharynx biopsy specimens from patients with low-differentiated squamous cell carcinoma who got treatment in × × × hospital from 2002-2005. The specimens included 40 male patients and 16 female patients(age ranged from 18 to 80 year old). According to AJCC classification of 2002, T₁ was 7 cases,T₂ 21,T₃ 19 and T₄ 9; N₀ wasl2 cases, N₁ 14, N₂ 25 and N₃ 5; Stage â…  was 2 cases, Stage â…¡ was 13 cases, Stage â…¢ was 26 cases,and Stage â…£ was 15 cases. All the tissue samples were fixed 10% formaldehyde solution after being obtained, then embedded in paraffin, 5-micrometer thick sections were prepared for examining the expression of COX-2 and Survivin and Caspase3 by Sreeptavidin-peroxidase immunochemistry. All the figures were analyzed statistically with SPSS10.0 software in computer.Result:1 .Positive expression rate of COX-2 was 80.3%,and positive expression rate of Survivinwas 69.9%, positive expression rate of Caspase-3 was 25%.2.There was significant association of COX-2 with N stage and clinical stage(p<0.05),none-significant relation of COX-2 with age, gender, tumor stage and pathologicalclassification(p>0.05). There was no relation between Survivin and age, gender, T stage,N stage, pathological classification and clinical stage(p>0.05). There was also norelation between Caspase-3 and age, gender, T stage, N stage, pathological classificationand clinical stage(p>0.05)3.The expression of COX-2 showed a significant positive correlation with the expressionof Survivin (r =0.373,p=0.005)Conclusion: The result suggests that COX-2 and Survivin are highly expressed in nasopharygeal carcinoma cells and the expression of COX-2 is associated with cervical lymph nodes metastasis and clinical stage, expression of COX-2 is positively correlated with the expression of Survivin, and it shows that COX-2 can enhance the expression of Survivin.