Effects of Nerve Growth Factor Expression on Perineural Invasion and Worse Prognosis in Early-Stage Cervical Cancer

作者：Ying Long, Desheng Yao, You-Sheng Wei, Guang-Teng Wu · 发表于：Chinese Medical Journal · 年份：2018 · DOI：10.4103/0366-6999.241808 · 被引用次数：17 · 研究领域：Endometrial and Cervical Cancer Treatments、Neurofibromatosis and Schwannoma Cases、Nerve injury and regeneration

To the Editor: Several kinds of malignant tumors show perineural invasion (PNI), which can cause locoregional recurrence and reduce the likelihood of survival after surgery. Our previous study has shown that PNI in cervical cancer is associated with other pathology risk features, and other studies have shown that it is a predictor of poor prognosis.[123] These findings highlight the importance of clarifying the molecular mechanism of PNI. Neurotrophins, particularly nerve growth factor (NGF), may facilitate PNI. NGF binds with low affinity to two transmembrane receptors, the tropomyosin-receptor kinase (Trk)-A receptor and the p75 neurotrophin receptor (p75NRT). High expression of NGF and TrkA has been linked to PNI in some types of cancer,[45] but whether this occurs in cervical cancer is unclear. Here, we investigated whether the expression of NGF and its receptors were linked to PNI in cervical cancer. We also investigated whether such expression was linked to patient prognosis, in which case it might serve as a useful prognostic marker. We retrospectively analyzed 85 cervical cancer patients who underwent surgical therapy at the Affiliated Tumor Hospital of Guangxi Medical University between September 2011 and August 2014. This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the Affiliated Tumor Hospital of Guangxi Medical University. All patients met the following inclusion criteria: (1) their tumor was identified as cervical cancer in Stage IB–IIB according to t...