Poster Presenter

Expression of BCL-2 Correlates with Poor Prognosis and Modulates Migration of Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Cells
Mu-Kuan Chen, Shun-Fa Yang, Jui-Chung Lai, Kun-Tu Yeh, Jia-Sin Yang ,Li-Sheng Chen, Hui-Chuan Chen
Taiwan

Background: The prognostic impact and the possible mechanism of bcl-2 expression on patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) are still unclear.

Patients and Methods: From 1996 to 2000, 145 patients with newly diagnosed NPC were enrolled at a tertiary referral center. The relationship between the bcl-2 expression, TNM stage, and the disease-specific survival was analyzed. Furthermore, a nasopharyngeal carcinoma cell lines HONE-1 was also used to confirm the relationship between bcl-2 and cell metastasis.

Results: Among the 145 patients, 47(32.4%) of them were bcl-2 positive. The expression of bcl-2 significantly correlated with neck lymph node metastasis (p = 0.006). Patients with negative bcl-2 expression had better disease-free survival (p = 0.007). The Cox regression model revealed that only bcl-2 expression (p = 0.023) and stage IV (p = 0.043) were statistically significant. In the in vitro study also showed that bcl-2 inhibitor HA14-1 treatment exerted an inhibitory effect on the migration and the expressions of matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-2 of HONE-1 cell.

Conclusions: Bcl-2 expression represented an important prognostic factor and it may play an important role in the lymph node metastasis. The bcl-2 inhibitor seems promising in the treatment of NPC patients with positive bcl-2 expression who had the poorer prognosis after the current therapy.