Decreased ARID1A expression is correlated with chemoresistance in epithelial ovarian cancer

Loss of ARID1A is related to oncogenic transformation of ovarian clear cell adenocarcinoma. The present study was conducted in epithelial ovarian cancer of all tissue types to investigate whether an increased or decreased expression level of ARID1A can be a prognostic factor for ovarian cancer or can influence the sensitivity to anticancer drugs.

The expression level of ARID1A was investigated in 111 patients with epithelial ovarian cancer who received initial treatment at the Hirosaki University Hospital between 2006 and 2011. The expression level of ARID1A was immunohistochemically graded using staining scores, which were calculated by multiplying the staining intensity of the nuclei by the stain-positive area.

The level of ARID1A was significantly lower in clear cell adenocarcinoma than in other histologic types. Among the patients with stage III, IV cancer (n=46), the level of ARID1A was significantly lower (p=0.026) in patients who did not achieve complete response (CR; n=12) than in patients who achieved CR (n=34). The level of ARID1A was relatively lower (p=0.07) in patients who relapsed after achieving CR (n=21) than in patients who did not relapse (n=13). When the staining score of 0 was defined as ARID1A-negative and other staining scores were defined as ARID1A-positive, there was significant difference in progression-free survival between ARID1A-negative (n=11) and ARID1A-positive (n=35) patients in stage III, IV disease.

The result suggests that decreased ARID1A expression is correlated with chemoresistance and may be a predictive factor for the risk of relapse of advanced cancer after achieving CR.