The significance of metastasis related-factors nm23-h1 and cathepsin d in prostate cancer

Abstract EN

Different regulators or effectors of the metastatic cascade can be of prognostic/or predictive significance.

Nm23-H1 and cathepsin D operate at different levels of the metastatic process.

Immunohistochemical staining of nm23-H1 and cathepsin D was performed in this study to clarify more the relation between prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia (PIN) and cancer prostate (CAP) and correlate the two markers with clinicopathological parameters in CAP to determine their prognostic significance.

This study included 50 cases, 22 of them were benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), 5 cases of PIN and 23 cases of CAP.

Cytoplasmic and nuclear nm23-H1 on one hand and tissue and stromal cathepsin D on the other were assessed separately.

A high significant nm23-H1 and cathepsin D expression in PIN and CAP compared to BPH was found, while no significant difference was detected between PIN and CAP.

Nuclear nm23-H1 was significantly highly expressed with advanced tumour stages (p = 0.02).

High expression of stromal cathepsin D was significantly correlated with Gleason's score (p = 0.004), WHO grade (p = 0.01), Whitmore stage (p = 0.002), TNM stage (p = 0.009) and PSA level (p = 0.009).

While tissue cathepsin D was significantly correlated with Whitmore stage only (p = 0.03).

These findings showed a phenotypic similarity of PIN to CAP with respect to nm23-H1 and cathepsin D expression.

Furthermore, strong expression of nm23-H1 likely represents an early event in the development of CAP.

Presence and localization of cathepsin D suggested its involvement in tumour invasion and metastasis.

It is conceivable that cathepsin D when used with current modalities such as serum PSA and Gleason's score might improve the accuracy of prostate cancer staging.