Folia Histochemica et Cytobiologica (Apr 2010)

Prognostic significance of smac/DIABLO in endometrioid endometrial cancer

  • Bozena Dobrzycka,
  • Slawomir J. Terlikowski,
  • Piotr S. Bernaczyk,
  • Magdalena Garbowicz,
  • Jacek Niklinski,
  • Lech Chyczewski,
  • Marek Kulikowski

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 48, no. 4
pp. 678 – 681

Abstract

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Apoptosis may occur via a death receptor-dependent or independent (mitochondrial) pathway. The mitochondrialpathway is regulated by small molecules, such as smac/Diablo, which activates caspase cascades. This study examinedsmac/DIABLO expression in 76 patients with endometrioid endometrial cancers. Presence of smac/DIABLO was quantifiedby Western blot analysis using nonfixed fresh frozen tissues. Its appearance was found in 55 (72%) of examined tumors.Smac/DIABLO expression significantly correlated with tumor grade (p<0.001). Patients with positive smac/DIABLOtumors had a longer disease-specific survival when compared with those with negative tumors in the 10-year follow-up(p=0.043). The study demonstrated that negative smac/DIABLO expression was a poor prognostic sign.

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