HE4 Expression in Epithelial Ovarian Cancer Tissues and its Relationship with Clinicopathological Features

Objective To explore the human epididymis protein 4(HE4) expression in epithelial ovarian cancer tissues and its relationship with clinicopathologic features.Methods Immunohistochemistry was used to detect the expression of HE4 protein in tissues,among this series,47 cases were epithelial ovarian cancer organization(hereinafter referred to as ovarian cancer tissue),20 cases were normal ovarian and 20 cases were benign ovarian tumor.The positive cell of staining section was measured by computer image processing software.Results In normal ovarian tissue,benign ovarian tumors and ovarian cancer tissue,positive expression rate of HE4 protein was respectively 0(0/20),10.0%(2/20),74.5%(35/47).The positive expression rate in ovarian carcinoma group was significantly higher than that in the normal ovarian and benign ovarian tumor groups(P0.01,P0.01).There was no significant statistical difference of positive expression rate of HE4 protein in normal ovarian tissue and benign ovarian tumor(P0.05).The HE4 protein positive expression rate was higher in ovarian cancer patients with the advanced stages(stage Ⅲ/Ⅳ,89.5%)compared with the early stages(stage Ⅰ/Ⅱ,57.1%)(P0.05);In the cell,the positive rate of the moderately and poorly differentiated groups(92.6%,25/27) was higher than well differentiation group(65.0%,13/20),(P0.05);The positive expression rate of HE4 protein in ovarian cancer with lymph node metastasis(72.4%,21/29) was higher than that without lymph node metastasis(38.9%,7/18),(P0.05).The expression of HE4 in patients with ovarian cancer has no correlation with age(P0.05).Conclusion HE4 expression level in tissue of ovarian cancer is closely related with clinical stages,cell grades and lymph node metastasis.HE4 can be used as an index,which predicting invasion,metastasis and prognosis of ovarian cancer.