title: Immunoradiometric and immunohistochemical analysis of Cathepsin D in ovarian cancer: lack of association with clinical outcome.
abstract: The aim of this study was to analyse the clinical significance of Cathepsin D (Cath D) content as determined by an immunoradiometric assay in a series of primary untreated ovarian cancers from 162 patients. In addition, immunohistochemical analysis of Cath D was also performed on a subset of 86 tumours. Cath D levels were distributed in an asymmetrical way and were skewed towards the lower values (median value 20.8 pmol mg(-1) protein, range 2.0-99.0 pmol mg(-1) protein). No correlation was found between Cath D levels and clinicopathological parameters. However, the percentage of Cath D positivity was significantly higher in oestrogen receptor-positive (57%) compared with oestrogen receptor-negative (36%) cases (P= 0.01). The percentage of Cath D-positive staining was not significantly different for both epithelial (27%) and stromal components (40%). Immunoradiometrically detected Cath D levels were not different according to Cath D stromal immunostaining (P= 0.18), while higher Cath D levels were measured in Cath D-positive than in Cath D-negative tumour epithelial cells (P = 0.027). Survival analysis was conducted on 161 primary untreated ovarian cancer patients. The 5-year overall survival rate was 57% and 55% in Cath D-positive and Cath D-negative patients respectively (P = 0.69). As far as time to progression was concerned, there was no significant difference in the survival rate of patients with either high or low Cath D content (P = 0.56). Similar results have been obtained in the subset of patients in which Cath D was analysed by immunohistochemistry. In conclusion, Cath D measurement in tumour extracts appears to have a limited usefulness in improving the prognostic characterization of ovarian cancer patients.
authors.affiliation: Department of Gynaecology and Obstetrics, Catholic University, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Ferrandina
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Scambia
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Fagotti
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: D'Agostino
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Benedetti Panici
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Carbone
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mancuso
mesh_terms: D002402:Cathepsin D / Q000032:analysis*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D015592:Immunoradiometric Assay; D010051:Ovarian Neoplasms / Q000201:enzymology* / Q000401:mortality; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D015996:Survival Rate; D016896:Treatment Outcome
chemical_list: D002402:Cathepsin D