Clinical significance of MMP-2 and COX-2 expression in epithelial ovarian cancers

Objective: To assess the clinical significance of protein MMP2 and COX-2 expression in epithelial ovarian cancers.Methods: Immunohistochemical technique was used to detect the proteins of COX-2 and MMP-2 respectively expressed in specimens from epithelial ovarian cancer and benign ovarian tumors.Results: Both COX-2 and MMP-2 were not detected in the tissues of ovarian benign tumors,yet were positively expressed in 50 cases of epithelial ovarian cancer,which was statistically different(P 0.05).Also,COX-2 was different from MMP-2 regarding the expression rate,clinical staging,degree of differentiation and presence or absence of regional nodal metastasis of the malignancy(P 0.05).Conclusion: The generation and development of the epithelial ovarian cancer are associated with the expression of COX-2 and MMP-2 protein that may serve as an indicator for estimation of the prognosis of epithelial ovarian cancer.