Expression Of HGF And Its Receptor C-Met In Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma And Neck Lymph Nodes

ObjectiveTo offer experiment evidence for evaluating prognosis and exploring new therapy to oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) we approached the effect of HGF / c-Met system on the invasive and metastasis potential of OSCC by investigating the expression of hepatocyte growth factor(HGF)and its receptor Proto-oncogene protein c-Met (c-Met) in oral squamous cell carcinoma and neck nodes.MethodsFifty biopsy samples of tumors and neck lymphonodes were collected from OSCC patients who had been diaganosed in oralmaxillofacial surgery in Qilu Hospital of Shandong University from January of 2005 to December of 2006. Samples were divided into groups according to the clinicopathology features of the tumor size,pathological type,had or no regional invastion,primary or recrudesent tumor and had or no metastasis of neck lymphonode.Twenty biopsy samples were collected from normal oral mucosa and fifteen from normal neck nodes.Immunohistochemical(IHC) staining was used to detect the expression of HGF and c-Met in OSCC tissues and neck nodes. Detecting the positive rate and expression intensity of HGF/c-Met in OSCC tissues and neck nodes and normal oral mucosa by IHC and the expression intensity was recorded by average±standard differentiation ( x±s ) .Then the difference of the date was analyzed by CS10.34 statistics software . ResultsThe expression rate of HGF in normal mucosa was 10%(2/20),and c-Met was 0. The expression rate of HGF and c-Met in carcinoma cells was 100% (50/50). The HGF expression rate in neck nodes of the nontumorous control group was 26.7% (4/15) ,and c-Met was 0. The HGF expression rate in neck nodes of the OSCC group was 60%(30/50),and c-Met was 28%(14/50) .The results of statistics displayed the high level expression of HGF in carcinoma cells was correlated with invasion and recurrence. The high expression rate of c-Met in tumor cells and the positive expression of HGF in lymphocyte of neck nodes was correlated with lymph nodes metastasis. The tumor's size and pathotype had no significant relation with the expression of HGF and c-Met intumors and neck nodes.ConclusionsAccording to our results,we presumed that overexpression of HGF/c-Met may promote the OSCC's character of regional invasion and recurrence and metastasis of lymphonode.Detectting the expression of HGF/c-Met may be useful to evaluate the prognose of OSCC patients.And then we supposed that blocking the function of HGF/c-Met may be available to the therapy of OSCC.