Expression of heparanase on the squamous cell carcinoma of head and neck and its clinical significance

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the relationship among expression of heparanase (HPSE), the clinical and pathologic characteristics of squamous carcinoma on head and neck and the patients' prognosis. METHODS: Sixty-two cases of postoperative tumor specimens were verified by immunohistochemistry S-P method and computer-assisted image analysis method was used. RESULTS: The expression of HPSE in normal epithelium mucosae of head and neck was negative or very weak; in tumor tissue was positive, mainly in cytoplasm and the positive rate was 69.3%. The expression of HPSE hadn't significant difference with the age of patients and pathologic grades of tumors (chi2 = 0.05, chi2 = 3.84, P > 0.05), but had it with clinical stages and metastatic lymph node lesions (chi2 = 3.96, chi2 = 8.06, P < 0.05). The relationship between expression of HPSE in primary tumors and that in metastatic lymph node lesions showed significantly positive correlation (r = 0.9162, P = 0.001). Both HPSE and TNM clinical stage of tumor had significant correlation with the prognosis of patients respectively (P < 0.05). Calculated by Kaplan-Meier method, the accumulative survival rate of 3 years in positive HPSE expression group (25.9%) was much lower than that in negative group (72.7%), there was a significant difference between them by Log-Rank test (chi2 = 11.607, P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: The expression of HPSE is significantly increased in squamous carcinomas of head and neck, mainly expressed in cytoplasm. The expression of HPSE has a close relationship with clinical stages and lymph node metastasis of squamous carcinoma on head and neck. The higher the clinical stage, the more manifest the expression of HPSE. The expression of HPSE and TNM clinical stage of tumor are independent factors affecting prognosis.