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Elevated Cyclooxygenase-2 Expression Is Associated with Altered Expression of p53 and SMAD4, Amplification of HER-2/neu, and Poor Outcome in Serous Ovarian Carcinoma

¹ Departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology, ² Pathology, ³ Clinical Chemistry, and ⁴ Surgery, Helsinki University Central Hospital and ⁵ Molecular and Cancer Biology Research Program, Biomedicum Helsinki, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland, and ⁶ Department of Pathology, Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Purpose and Experimental Design: Cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) is frequently expressed in human adenocarcinomas and inhibition of COX-2 suppresses tumor formation in various animal models of carcinogenesis. We analyzed expression of COX-2 protein in human serous ovarian carcinomas by immunohistochemistry (n = 442) and by Western blotting (n = 12) and COX-2 mRNA by reverse transcriptase PCR (n = 12). COX-2 immunoreactivity was correlated to clinicopathological variables and to expression of p53 and SMAD4 as detected by immunohistochemistry and to amplification of HER-2/neu as detected by in situ hybridization.

Results: COX-2 mRNA expression was detected in 75% (9 of 12) and COX-2 protein in 42% (5 of 12) of the serous ovarian adenocarcinoma specimens as detected by reverse transcriptase-PCR and Western blot analysis, respectively. Moderate to strong (elevated) immunoreactivity for COX-2 was detected in 70% (310 of 442) of the tumors. Elevated COX-2 expression associated with reduced disease-specific survival (P = 0.0011), high histological grade (P < 0.0001), residual tumor size > 1 cm (P = 0.0111), and age > 57 years (P = 0.0099). Tumors with altered immunostaining pattern for p53 or SMAD4 expressed more frequently elevated levels of COX-2 when compared with the tumors with normal staining pattern of these tumor suppressor genes (P < 0.0001 and P = 0.0004, respectively). In addition, elevated COX-2 expression associated with amplification of HER-2/neu oncogene (P = 0.0479).

Conclusions: Our results suggest that elevated expression of COX-2 associates with reduced survival in serous ovarian carcinomas and that expression of COX-2 may be induced in these tumors by loss of tumor suppressor genes such as p53and SMAD4and by amplification of HER-2/neuoncogene.

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