Can TROP2 be used as a prognostic marker in endometrioid endometrial carcinoma?

Abstract

Background: Endometrioid-type endometrial carcinoma is the most common malignancy of the female genital tract in developed countries. The prognosis greatly depends on the grade and stage of the disease. Aims: In some patients, the disease recurs in a short time after the surgical/medical therapy. Hence, it is important to predict the patients who will have worse prognosis at the beginning, to choose the appropriate treatment; resuming the search of new prognostic markers. Therefore, our study aimed to detect trophoblast cell surface antigen 2 (TROP2) as a new prognostic marker. Settings and Design: The patients who underwent a hysterectomy and diagnosed with endometrioid-type endometrial carcinoma were evaluated retrospectively and TROP2 immunostain was performed to their tumoral slides. Materials and Methods: We evaluated TROP2 expressions in 102 patients immunohistochemically who underwent hysterectomy with the diagnosis of endometrioid-type endometrial carcinoma histopathologically and correlated them with the other generally accepted prognostic parameters. Statistical Analysis: The Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and Q-Q plot test were used to verify the normality of the distribution of continuous variables. The Chi-square/Fisher's exact tests were used for categorical variables. Analyses were performed with SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 20. Results: High overexpression of TROP2 was seen in larger, higher-grade, deeper-invasive tumors, tumors with vascular invasion, and pelvic-lymph-node metastasis. These results were statistically significant (P <= 0.05). Conclusion: Overexpression of TROP2 in endometrioid-type endometrial carcinoma seems to be a poor prognostic factor; it may be useful in determining the biologically more aggressive tumors before the treatment. This early determination is very important to choose the appropriate surgery, adjuvant-treatments, and follow-up.