Correlation of heparanase mRNA expression to invasion, metastasis and angiogenesis of head and neck squamous cell carcinomas

Objective To investigate the expression of heparanase mRNA and its correlation with the invasion, metastasis and angiogenesis in head and neck squamoas cell carcinomas (HNSCCs). Meth-otis Heparanase mRNA was detected by reverse transcription-PCR (RT-PCR) in 70 human HNSCCs tis-sues and 30 adjacent cancer tissues, and the correlation of heparanase expression with the clinicoopathologi-cal characteristics was analyzed. In addition, CD34 was detected by immunohistochemistry and the associa-tion of the heparanase expression with microvessel density (MVD) was analyzed. Results Positive rate of heparanase mRNA in the HNSCCs tissues was 58.57% (41/70) ,significantly higher than that in the ad-jacent tissues (10% ,3/30) (X2 =20. 107 ,P ＜0.01). Expression of heparanase was positively correlated with histological grade ,tumor stage and lymph lode metastasis of HNSCCs (X2 = 10.447 ,P ＜ 0. 01 ;X2 =19.843,P＜0. 01;X2 = 18.798,P＜0.01). MVD in heparanase mRNA positive group (57.65 ± 4.46)was significantly higher than that in heparanase mRNA negative group (35.23 ± 4.16) (P ＜ 0.01). Con-clusion Heparanase may promote the invasion,metastasis and angiogenesis of HNSCCs,clearly indicating that heparanase is a possible target for anticancer drug development. Key words: Heparanase; Squamous cell carcinomas;  head and neck; Metastasis ; Anglo-genesis