Insulin-like growth factors in endometrioid adenocarcinoma: Correlation with clinico-pathological features and estrogen receptor expression

• Main Authors: Liang Yuan-Jiao, Hao Qun, Zhang Hui-Ming, Wu Yuan-Zhe, Wang Jian-Dong
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: BMC 2012-06-01
• Series: BMC Cancer
• Subjects: Endometrioid adenocarcinoma; Insulin-like growth factor; Estrogen receptor
• Online Access: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2407/12/262

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Endometrial carcinoma is a common malignancy of female genital tract. Insulin-like growth factor is known to elicit estrogen-induced mitogenic activity and anti-apoptotic effect in endometrial tissues.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The retrospective study investigated the expression of insulin-like growth factors, estrogen receptors and their associations in endometrioid adenocarcinoma (EAC) from 80 EAC patients in immunohistochemistry, and 58 EAC patients and 42 control patients in quantitative RT-PCR. The Pearson correlation analysis was used to analyze their correlations with clinic-pathological parameters.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Our results showed that insulin-like growth factor-1 and insulin-like growth factor-2 mRNA levels were higher in tumor tissues and tumor-adjacent tissues than those in control cells, and were inversely correlated with the malignancy of the tumor with a positive correlation with ERα and ERβ expression. Insulin-like growth factor-1R protein expression was correlated with clinical stage, and insulin-like growth factor-2R protein expression was inversely correlated with histological grade.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Insulin-like growth factor system plays an important role in estrogen-induced endometrial carcinogenesis, and overexpression of insulin-like growth factor-1R in the advanced endometrioid adenocarcinoma is not estrogen-dependent.</p>