Expression of nm23-H1 gene product and MMP-2 in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma and their clinical significance

Objective To investigate the expression of nm23-H1 and MMP-2 in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma(ESCC) and their clinical significance.Methods Immunochemical S-P method were used to detect the expression of nm23-H1,MMP-2 protein in 58 patients with ESCC and 23 people with normal esophageal mucosa.Results Twenty-five cases (43.1％) were positive for nm23-H1 staining and 33 cases (56.9％) were negative.The rate of nm23-H1-positive patients was significantly less than that in normal groups whose rate was 100％ (P ＜ 0.05).Fifty-three cases (91.4％) were positive for MMP-2 staining and 5 cases(8.6％) were negative,while eight(34.8％) of 23 patients were positive for MMP-2 staining and 15 cases (8.6％) were negative.There was significant difference in MMP-2 positive-proportion of ESCC patients and normal groups (P ＜ 0.05).A further analysis of these data shown that the expression of nm23-H1and MMP-2 was related to tumor differentiation degree,invasion depth and lymph node metastasis (P ＜ 0.05),and was not related to patients' gender,age and tumor size (P ＞ 0.05).The expression of nm23-H1 was related to residual cancer (P ＜ 0.05),and was negatively correlated to expression of MMP-2.Conclusions nm23-H1,MMP-2 play a role in the development and progression of esophageal cancer,which can increase risk of distant metastasis.Residual cancer may be associated with the absent of expression of nm23-H1.The expression of nrn23-H1 and MMP-2 protein can be a marker for judging esophageal cancer metastasis and prognosis. Key words: Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma; nm23-H1; Matri metalloproteinase-2; Immunohistochemistry