Affiliations: [a] Laboratory of Molecular Biotechnology of Eukaryotic, Center of Biotechnology of Sfax, University of Sfax, Sfax, Tunisia | [b] Departement of Anatomopathology, CHU Habib Bourguiba Sfax, Sfax, Tunisia
Correspondence:
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Corresponding author: Raja Mokdad-Gargouri, Laboratory of Molecular Biotechnology of Eukaryotic, Center of Biotechnology of Sfax, University of Sfax, Sidi Mansour street, BP ``K'' 1177-Sfax, 3018 Tunisia. E-mail:raja.gargouri@cbs.rnrt.tn
Abstract: BACKGROUND: Inflammation and hormonal signalling induce the cyclooxygenase-2
(COX-2) expression in various human cancers including Gastric Cancer (GC).
GC remains among the human malignancies diagnosticated at advanced tumor
stage and thus having a poor prognosis. COX-2 is a key protein in cancer
progression which is involved in proliferation, invasion, and metastasis of
tumor cells. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to investigate the expression of COX-2
and its association with clinico-patholocigal parameters
and survival in Tunisian GC patients and to correlate COX-2 expression with
others cancer-related proteins. METHODS: The immunohistochemistry was used to study the expression of COX-2
on 93 patients with gastric adenocarcinoma. RESULTS: Our results show that COX-2 immunostaining is negative to weak in
51.6%, moderate in 33.3%, and intense in 15.1% of tumor tissues.
The expression of COX-2 associated significantly with tumor
differentiation (p = 0.003), and histological type (p = 0.039).
Furthermore, lack of COX-2 expression is significantly
associated with 1-year (p= 0.005), 2-years (p= 0.000), and 5-years
(p= 0.042) relapse free survival. In addition,
Cox regression model, revealed that metastasis (p= 0.014), tumor site (p= 0.013), histotype (p = 0.02),
and COX-2 expression (p = 0.003) are independent factors
for prognosis. Regarding the relationship between COX-2 and cancer related
proteins, we found that COX-2 expression is positively associated with APC
(p = 0.006), and P53 (p = 0.026), supporting a cross link between these proteins in gastric carcinogenesis. CONCLUSION: Our findings emphasize the importance of COX-2 as a potential
marker of tumor progression and prognosis in GC, and that the inhibition of
COX-2 activity may have a therapeutic benefit in GC.
