Expression Of Endocan In Breast Carcinoma And Its Prognostic Value

Background: Breast carcinoma is one of the most common malignant tumors for females,which increases at the rate of 4% every year and ranks first in female malignant tumors and greatly threatens females'health. It is helpful to elucidate the influence factors of breast carcinoma prognosis at molecular level in order to further understanding the biological behavior of breast carcinoma. Endocan, which is also called endothelial cell specific molecule 1 and was found in recent years, is a special endothelial cell specific molecule. Studies have shown that the expression of endocan was upregulated in some tumor tissues, such as renal cell carcinoma, malignant lymphoma, endometrial carcinoma, colorectal carcinoma and others. The distributions of endocan in the breast carcinoma tissue and its biological significance to breast carcinoma have not yet known, so it is worth to be further studied.Objective: To analysis the expression of endocan mRNA and its protein in breast carcinoma tissues and its relationship to the clinicopathological features, and its prognosic significance.Methods: Tumor tissue chips of breast carcinoma from 108 female patients were constructed. The expression of endocan mRNA and its protein was detected by in situ hybridization and immunohistochemistry respectively. Patients were followed up via mail or telephone, the follow up period was 5 years.Results: (1) Positive stainings for both endocan mRNA and its protein were evident in cancer tissues, with positive rates 42.6% and 88.0%, which were mainly located in the carcinoma cells of cancer tissue and blood vessel endothelia, and in nuclei in a few cases. In contrast, Positive stainings for both endocan mRNA and its protein in breast tissues adjacent to the carcinoma were found only in some endothelial cells, no positive stainings were found in breast epithelia. (2) Positive relations were found between the expression of endocan mRNA and that of its protein(r=0.220, P<0.05). (3) High level expression of the protein in patients who survived for more than 5 years is 74.4%, which was higher than that in the death group (44.4%), and expression of over five years survival is negative correlation to expression of death. The high expression rate of protein in tumors less than 2cm in diameter was 41.6%, which is lower than that of the tumors between 2cm and 5cm in diameter(s76.9%). (4) The mRNA expression of more than 50 years old group is 63.6%, which is obvious higher than that of less than 50 years old, and the difference is apparent(P<0.01). (5) There are no relationship between protein expression and histological grading, ERα, PR, TNM stage, lymphonode status and patient age.Conclusion: (1) Abnormal expression exists in breast carcinoma tissue, indicating endocan has close relation to breast carcinoma. (2) Endocan can be treated as the molecule marker of breast carcinoma prognosis.