Expression of cathepsin L in nasopharyngeal carcinoma and its clinical significance
X. Xu1, G. Yuan2, W. Liu1, Y. Zhang1, W. Chen2
1Cancer Center, Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan 430060, China
2Department of Oncology, the Third Affiliated Hospital of Wenhou Medical College, Rui’an 325200, Zhejiang Province, China
Abstract. Aim: To study the expression of cathepsin L in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), and analyze its relationship with clinicopathologic factors. Methods: The expression of cathepsin L was determined immunohistochemically in NPC, adjacent normal nasopharyngeal tissues and metastatic cervical lymph nodes. The correlation between its protein expression and clinicopathologic parameters as well as with long term follow-up data in NPC was analyzed. Results: The protein of cathepsin L was overexpressed in 47% primary tumor tissues, and in 89% metastatic cervical lymph node samples. Overexpression of cathepsin L was found to correlate with lymph node metastasis (P = 0.04) and distant metastasis (P = 0.01), and marginally with clinical stage and T classification, but not with patient age, gender and histological classification of tumor. Patients with overexpression of cathepsin L in tumor tissue had worse 5-year survival than those without such expression pattern (P = 0.033). Multivariate survival analysis showed that cathepsin L protein expression level had a marginal significant correlation with prognosis of NPC. Conclusion: Cathepsin L is a potential biomarker for prognosis of NPC and contributes to NPC metastasis.
