Expressions of cellular adhesion molecular phagocyte glycoprotein in endometrial carcinoma and their clinical significance

Objective: To study the expressions of standard and alternative spliced variant V6 of the cellular adhesion molecular phagocyte glycoprotein（CD44） in 60 cases endometrial carcinoma and their clinical significance.Methods: The expressions of CD44V6 were determined by immunohistochemistry with monoclonal antibody.Flow cytometry was used to determined the expression of CD44 standard（CD44H） protein.60 samples of endometrial carcinoma tissues,and the related prognostic factors of these patients were investigated.Results: The results show that 16 samples in 60 samples of endometrial carcinoma tissues had positive expression of CD44H 26.7%（16/60）,11 samples had positive expression of CD44V6 18.3%（11/60）.In 14 samples of endometrial proliferation tissues,6 samples had positive expressions of CD44H and CD44V6 and were 42.9%（6/14）,respectively.However in 22 samples of normal endometrial tissues,14 samples had positive expressions of CD44H 63.3%（（14/22））,and 18 samples had positive expressions of CD44V6 81.8%（18/22）.These indicated that positive expression in endometrial carcinoma tissues were significantly lower than those in normal endometrium and endometrial proliferation.Lymph-vascular space involvement of endometrial cancer cell was observed to be statically significant in the CD44-negative group as opposed to the positive group.The variability expressions of CD44V6 were related to lymph-vessel invasion and involvement of histospace（P＜0.01）.Conclusion: CD44 especially CD44V6 variability could play important roles in genesis and development of endometrial carcinoma.Reduced CD44 expression might be related to the metastasis of endometrial carcinoma cells through lymph-vascular space.They may be used as the indexes for patients with endometrial carcinoma.