Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate the prognostic significance of clusterin expression in invasive cervical cancer patients treated with radical hysterectomy and systematic lymphadenectomy.
Methods: Invasive cervical cancer specimens were obtained from 52 patients who underwent radical hysterectomy and systematic lymphadenectomy at Hokkaido University Hospital from 1997 to 2004. The expression of clusterin protein was analyzed by immunohistochemical staining. Findings were evaluated in relation to several clinicopathological factors. Survival analyses were performed by the Kaplan-Meier curves and the log-rank test. Independent prognostic factors were determined by multivariate Cox regression analysis.
Results: Clusterin protein was present in the cytoplasm of cervical cancer cells. The expression of clusterin protein in invasive cervical cancer tissues was not related to any clinicopathologic factors analyzed. Patients with positive clusterin expression showed significantly worse prognosis than those with negative clusterin expression (p=0.017). Multivariate analysis including clusterin expression revealed that clusterin expression (p=0.006) and the number of positive node groups (p=0.002) were independent prognostic factors for survival. Survival of patients with invasive cervical cancer could be stratified into three groups by combination of clusterin expression and number of positive node groups with an estimated 5-year survival rate of 100.0% for no or one positive node group irrespective of clusterin expression (group A), 78.7% for multiple node groups with negative clusterin expression (group B), and 14.3% for multiple node groups with positive clusterin expression (group C) (p=0.03 for group A vs. group B, p=0.004 for group B vs. group C, and p<0.0001 for group A vs. group C).
Conclusions: Clusterin expression and the number of positive node groups were independent prognostic factors for invasive cervical cancer patients treated with radical hysterectomy and systematic lymphadenectomy. Clusterin might be a new molecular marker to predict the survival of cervical cancer patients with multiple positive node groups.