Immunohistochemical evaluation of SOX-10 in patients with urinary bladder cancer

Aim: To evaluate the expression levels of SOX-10 in tissues of bladder tumor and to prove the correlation between SOX-10 expression and clinicopathological characteristics of bladder tumors, including patient age, sex, tumor grade, and muscle invasion.

Materials and Methods: Forty formalin fixed paraffin embedded FFPE tissue blocks gathered by transurethral resection of bladder tumor are collected from teaching hospitals at Al-Najaf governorate. Those blocks were stained by hematoxylin and eosin. The histopathological characteristics were examined and immunostained by SOX10.

Results: An assessment of the expression of SOX-10 in urothelial carcinoma showed that the SOX-10 test was positive in five samples of urothelial carcinoma, while the SOX-10 test was negative in thirty-five samples. The correlation of SOX-10 with other variables (age, sex, and grade) was statistically non-significant.

Conclusions: SOX-10 is an immunohistochemical sensitive marker for the diagnosis of urothelial carcinoma. SOX-10 expression appeared to be non-significant relation with age, gender and histopathological parameters and its expression has been showed to be lost or decreased in substantial proportion in relation to urothelial carcinoma. This variation or down regulation of SOX-10 is correlated with higher tumor grade and stage.