ROMO1 and CD47 in Cervical Cancer: Parallel but Independently Regulated

Reactive Oxygen Species Modulator 1 (ROMO1) and CD47 have both been implicated in cervical carcinogenesis, but their relationship within the same tumor has not been investigated. We retrospectively analyzed immunohistochemical H-scores for ROMO1 and CD47 in 221 invasive cervical carcinomas, including 205 tumors with evaluable expression of both markers, and examined their associations with clinicopathological characteristics. ROMO1 and CD47 expression did not correlate at the individual-tumor level (Spearman ρ = -0.08, p = 0.25; κ = -0.10). CD47 expression decreased significantly with increasing local tumor extent (ρ = -0.21, p = 0.002) and FIGO stage (p = 0.006), while ROMO1 showed a weaker, non-significant trend in the same direction. The ROMO1-high/CD47-high phenotype was observed in 15.7% of early-stage tumors but was absent in locally advanced (pT2-pT4) tumors (χ²p = 0.001). These findings suggest that ROMO1 and CD47 are not directly co-regulated in cervical cancer, despite showing similar changes with local tumor progression. Their parallel expression patterns may therefore reflect separate responses to common factors involved in cervical carcinogenesis rather than a direct relationship between the two proteins. Further functional studies are needed to clarify the mechanisms underlying these findings.