The Expression and Clinical Significance of nm23-H1 and E-Cadherin in Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinomas

Objective: The objective is to investigate the expressions of nm23-H1 and E-cadherin in esophageal squamous cell carcinomas, and to explore the correlation between the two and its relationship with clinical pathological features. Methods: The expressions of nm23-H1 and E-cadherin in the tumor tissues of 60 patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinomas were examined immunohistochemistrically by the EnVision method, and their relationships were compared. Results: The positive rates of nm23-H1 and E-cadherin in expression in the esophageal squamous cell carcinomas tissue were 38.3% (23/60) and 41.7% (25/60), respectively. The positive rates of nm23-H1 and E-cadherin in expression in the normal esophageal mucosa were 90.0% (9/10). The positive expression rates of nm23-H1 and E-cadherin in esophageal squamous cell carcinomas were significantly lower than those in normal esophageal mucosa. The expression of nm23-H1 and E-cadherin had no significant correlation with the patients’ age, sex, histological type (P > O.05), but had correlation with degree of the differentiation, depth of tumor invasion, regional lymph node metastasis and TNM stage (P < 0.05). Nm23-H1 had positive correlation with E-cadherin. Conclusions: The expression of nm23-H1 and E-cadherin in esophageal squamous cell carcinomas was obviously lower than that in normal esophageal mucosa. The abnormal expression of nm23-H1 and E-cadherin are closely related to the degree of the differentiation of the cancer, depth of tumor invasion, lymph node metastasis and clinical stage; nm23-H1 and E-cadherin may be used as reference for assessing the malignancy and metastasis of esophageal squamous cell carcinomas.