Relationships between clinical behavior of laryngeal squamous cell carcinomas and expression of VEGF, MMP-9 and E-cadherin

The biological mechanisms of cancer and associations with behavior of tumours need to be studied to understand progression and determine appropriate treatments. Here we investigated expression of VEGF, MMP-9 and E-cadherin in laryngeal SCCs and their relations with clinical behavior. This prospective study was based on 38 surgical specimens from patients with primary laryngeal SCC and data recorded in their cards. Expression of the three factors in tumor tissue was examined using immunohistochemistry and correlations with clinical parameters of primary tumors, regional lymph node metastases, stage of disease, histopathologic differentiation, and vascular/cartilage invasion were investigated. Regarding the cases with positive MMP-9 expression, the difference between well and moderately/poorly differentiated tumors was statistically significant. However, differences between early stage (stage I and II) and late-stage (stage III and IV) tumours, and between positive and negative for pLN metastasis were not. No significant relationship between positive VEGF and tumor differentiation or stage was apparent, but E-cadherin levels significantly differed between well and moderately/ poorly differentiated tumours and with the presence of pLN metastasis. E-cadherin staining did not vary between MMP-9 positive and negative cases. In conclusion, MMP-9 may be a negative predictor of differentiation in laryngeal SCC, while E-cadherin is a predictor of differentiation and nodal metastases. Even if the difference between VEGF expression and tumor stage was not statistically significant, it seems that there exists some relationship, which might be clarified with a greater number of cases.