Expression and significance of gene FHIT in nasoparyngeal carcinoma

[Objective] To investigate the expression of fragile histidine triad (FHIT) gene in nasoparyngeal carcinoma and study its clinical significance. [Methods] The expression of FHIT were detected by immunohistochemistry SP method in 37 cases of nasoparyngeal carcinoma and 12 cases of adjacent nasoparyngeal tissue. [Results] 43.2% (16 of 37) cases had expression of FHIT in the tumor cells, and 100% (12 of 12) cases in the adjacent nasoparyngeal tissue. There was a significant positive correlation between nasoparyngeal carcinoma specimens and adjacent nasoparyngeal tissue specimens (P 0.01). The positive rates of FHIT in high and middle degrees of differentiation were significantly higher than that in low degree of differentiation(50.0% vs 36.4%). Tumors with lymph node metastases (38.5%) had loss FHIT protein expression than those without metastasis (54.5%) (P 0.05). The FHIT expression between (Ⅰ+Ⅱ) and (Ⅲ+Ⅳ) stage was significant (58.3% vs 36.0%) (P 0.05). FHIT protein expression had no relation to the patients′ age, sex, tissue type (P 0.05). [Conclusions] FHIT gene may play an important role in the occurrence and development of nasoparyngeal carcinoma. It is suggested that FHIT can be a useful marker for predicting invasion and metastasis ability of nasoparyngeal carcinoma.