Expression and clinical significance of YKL-40 protein in epithelial ovarian cancer tissues

Overexpression of YKL-40 has been detected in the sera from patients with various kinds of malignant tumors, including epithelial ovarian cancer. Moreover, YKL-40 expression is closely related to clinical phenotypes of some malignant tumors. This study was to investigate the expression and clinical...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inAi zheng = Aizheng = Chinese journal of cancer Vol. 28; no. 2; p. 142
Main Authors Yang, Guo-Fen, Cai, Peng-Yu, Li, Xiao-Ming, Deng, Hai-Xia, He, Wei-Peng, Xie, Dan
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published China 01.02.2009
Subjects
Adipokines
Chitinase-3-Like Protein 1
Epithelial Cells - pathology
Female
Glycoproteins - biosynthesis
Humans
Immunohistochemistry
Lectins
Middle Aged
Neoplasm Staging
Ovarian Neoplasms - metabolism
Ovarian Neoplasms - pathology
Prognosis
Survival Analysis
Tissue Array Analysis
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Summary:Overexpression of YKL-40 has been detected in the sera from patients with various kinds of malignant tumors, including epithelial ovarian cancer. Moreover, YKL-40 expression is closely related to clinical phenotypes of some malignant tumors. This study was to investigate the expression and clinical significance of YKL-40 protein in epithelial ovarian cancer tissues. Protein expression of YKL-40 was detected by immunohistochemistry (IHC) using tissue microarray (TMA) consisting of 86 specimens of epithelial ovarian cancer and 20 specimens of normal ovarian tissues. The correlations of YKL-40 expression to clinical features and prognosis, as well as to the expression of clusterin protein in epithelial ovarian cancer were evaluated. The expression of YKL-40 in all normal ovarian tissues was negative or at low levels. In 74 evaluable specimens of epithelial ovarian cancer, overexpression of YKL-40 was detected in 42 cases (56.8%). YKL-40 expression was closely associated with the clinical stage of epithelial ovarian cancer (p < 0.0001). The overall survival time in patients with overexpression of YKL-40 was significantly shorter than that in patients with normal expression of YKL-40 (p = 0.0389). Moreover, expression of YKL-40 protein was positively correlated with that of clusterin protein in epithelial ovarian cancer (p < 0.0001). YKL-40 may be used as a new molecular marker to predict the prognosis of epithelial ovarian cancer.