EP778 The role of the E-cadherin/β-catenin signal transduction pathway in the prognosis of advanced stage high-grade serous ovarian/fallopian tube cancer

Abstract

Introduction/Background The aim of the study was to evaluate the correlation between E-cadherin/β-catenin expression and the clinical and pathological parameters that influence the overall survival rate in patients with advanced stage high-grade serous ovarian/fallopian tube cancer Methodology We performed a retrospective cohort study on patients that underwent primary debulking surgery at the University Clinic of Gynecology and Obstetrics, University ‘Ss. Cyril and Methodius’, Skopje, Republic of North Macedonia between January 2010 and December 2015. The following disease characteristics were analyzed: age, stage, nuclear and tumor grade, lymphovascular invasion, the extent of primary debulking, platinum-based chemotherapy resistance and overall survival. Further, we analyzed the expression of E-cadherin/β-catenin by preforming immunohistochemical staining on deparaffinized and rehydrated tissue specimens with specific monoclonal antibodies. Results A total of 84 patients with primary ovarian and 9 patients with primary fallopian tube cancer met the inclusion criteria. The overall survival of patients in the analyzed cohort was 46 months (95% CI 38–53 months). The residual tumor volume after primary debulking surgery was an independent bad prognostic factor with HR=5.32 (p<0.001). The low frequency of expression as well as the weak staining for E-cadherin were independent bad prognostic factors for the survival of these patients with HR=2.7 (p=0.05) and HR=3.38 (p=0.04), respectively. The univariate analysis also identified that the low frequency of expression and weak staining for β-catenin were bad prognostic factors, but the significance was lost in the multivariate analysis. Conclusion In this study, we identified that the residual tumor volume after primary debulking surgery and the low frequency of expression and weak staining for E-cadherin were independent, statistically significant bad prognostic factors for the overall survival of patients with advanced stage high-grade serous ovarian/fallopian tube cancer. Beta catenin expression was not found to be an independent prognostic factor in the multivariate analysis.