Expression of caveolin-1 is associated with poor prognosis of patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the lung.
BACKGROUND
Caveolin-1, as a major component of caveolae, is involved in the regulation of cell cycle by impacting various signaling pathways. Previous studies of caveolin-1 in cancer showed two contrary results. In most in vitro studies, caveolin-1 played a role as a tumor suppressor. On the other hand, the elevated expression of caveolin-1 was often reported to be associated with poor clinical outcome in human studies. These results indicate differential biological functions of caveolin-1 depending on the development and progression stage of cancer in vivo.


METHODS
To clarify the correlation between the clinicopathologic profiles of pulmonary squamous cell carcinomas and the expression of caveolin-1, 107 cases of formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded tissues of pulmonary squamous cell carcinomas were immunohistochemically evaluated for the expression of caveolin-1 by the tissue-array method.


RESULTS
Caveolin-1 was expressed in 34 cases (31.7%) among 107 cases of pulmonary squamous cell carcinoma. The expression of caveolin-1 was statistically correlated with pathologic stage (stage I and II vs. III; P<0.001), pT (T1 and T2 vs. T3 and T4; P=0.001), and pN (N1 vs. N2 and N3; P=0.0143). The patients with caveolin-1 expression in pulmonary squamous cell carcinomas showed a poorer prognosis than those in caveolin-1-negative group (P=0.0345).


CONCLUSIONS
The expression of caveolin-1 is significantly correlated with advanced pathologic stage and poor prognosis in pulmonary squamous cell carcinoma. The results of current study suggest that the expression level of caveolin-1 may be a candidate factor for predicting prognosis in patients with pulmonary squamous cell carcinoma.
Department of Pathology, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Chongno-gu Yongon-dong 28, Seoul, South Korea.
Seong-Ho
SH
Yoo
Young Sik
YS
Park
Hyeong-Ryul
HR
Kim
Sook Whan
SW
Sung
Joo Hyun
JH
Kim
Young Soo
YS
Shim
Soong Deok
SD
Lee
Yoon-La
YL
Choi
Min-Kyung
MK
Kim
Doo Hyun
DH
Chung
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002289:Carcinoma, Non-Small-Cell Lung / Q000473:pathology*; D002294:Carcinoma, Squamous Cell / Q000473:pathology*; D051242:Caveolin 1; D022461:Caveolins / Q000096:biosynthesis*; D018450:Disease Progression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D011379:Prognosis; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D016019:Survival Analysis
C495540:CAV1 protein, human; D051242:Caveolin 1; D022461:Caveolins