Relationships Between Clinical Behavior of Laryngeal Squamous Cell Carcinomas and Expression of VEGF, MMP-9 and E-Cadherin

Abstract

The biological mechanisms of cancer and associations with behavior of tumours need to be studied tounderstand progression and determine appropriate treatments. Here we investigated expression of VEGF,MMP-9 and E-cadherin in laryngeal SCCs and their relations with clinical behavior. This prospective study wasbased on 38 surgical specimens from patients with primary laryngeal SCC and data recorded in their cards.Expression of the three factors in tumor tissue was examined using immunohistochemistry and correlationswith clinical parameters of primary tumors, regional lymph node metastases, stage of disease, histopathologicdifferentiation, and vascular/cartilage invasion were investigated. Regarding the cases with positive MMP-9expression, the difference between well and moderately/poorly differentiated tumors was statistically significant.However, differences between early stage (stage I and II) and late-stage (stage III and IV) tumours, and betweenpositive and negative for pLN metastasis were not. No significant relationship between positive VEGF and tumordifferentiation or stage was apparent, but E-cadherin levels significantly differed between well and moderately/poorly differentiated tumours and with the presence of pLN metastasis. E-cadherin staining did not vary betweenMMP-9 positive and negative cases. In conclusion, MMP-9 may be a negative predictor of differentiation inlaryngeal SCC, while E-cadherin is a predictor of differentiation and nodal metastases. Even if the differencebetween VEGF expression and tumor stage was not statistically significant, it seems that there exists somerelationship, which might be clarified with a greater number of cases.