The Expression And Clinical Significance Of CD44v6 And MMP-9 In Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma

Object: In this study, we use immunohistochemical technique to detect the expression and mutual connections of CD44v6 and MMP-9 in the normal salivary glands and various types of salivary tumor, and then investigate their roles in salivary tumors'invasion and metastasis.Methods: Subjects were selected from the archived paraffin-embedded salivary tumors which were excised by oral and maxillofacial surgery in the First Hospital of Shanxi Medical University during 2001 Jan to 2009 Dec(15 cases of normal salivary gland tissue,20 cases of benign tissue,59 cases of malignant tissue).Immunohistochemistry method was used to measure the expression and localization of CD44v6 and MMP-9 in different tissues of salivary gland.Then count the score results of CD44v6 and MMP-9 under microscope, the data was analyzed by SPSS17.0 software package.Results: In this study we use immunohistochemistry method to measure the expression and localization of CD44v6 and MMP-9 in 15 cases of salivary gland normal tissue,20 cases of pleomorphic adenoma (PA) tissue,48 cases of adenoid cystic carcinoma(ACC) tissue and 11 cases of malignant pleomorphic adenoma tissue. We found that: 1)The difference of CD44v6 score results between salivary gland normal tissue, pleomorphic adenoma, adenoid cystic carcinoma and malignant pleomorphic adenoma was significant(χ~2=17.079,P=0.001); The difference of CD44v6 score results between different pathological types of adenoid cystic carcinoma was significant(χ~2=6.756,P=0.034),it showed the lowest expression in entity type; the differences between tumor location site, sex, age, and the division of TNM of CD44v6 score contrast were not significant. 2) The difference of MMP-9 score results among the four different tissue was also significant (χ~2=13.174,P=0.004); In adenoid cystic carcinoma, the differences between tumor location site, sex, age of MMP-9 were not significant, while the difference of the division of TNM was significant(χ~2=6.531,P=0.038),the same result was also found betweenⅡperiod andⅢ,Ⅳperiod(χ~2=6.421,P=0.011).Conclusion: 1) CD44v6 is related to keeping the structure and function of normal salivary gland. The decrease or deficiency in its expression may have relations with the pathological type of adenoid cystic carcinoma. 2) The increase of MMP-9 in adenoid cystic carcinoma accelerates the degradation of extracellular matrix, which create the conditions for tumor's invasion and infiltration. 3)The decrease or deficiency of CD44v6 in adenoid cystic carcinoma leads to lower adhesion ability of tumor cell, while the increase of MMP-9 accelerates the degradation of extracellular matrix, these two mechanisms may intensify the invasion and infiltration of tumor.