Abstract

BACKGROUND
The down-regulation of caveolin-1, a putative tumor suppressor gene, has been demonstrated in several types of sarcomas. However, it's not known whether or not the gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) express caveolin-1. We carried out this study to investigate the caveolin-1 expression in GISTs and to determine the correlation between the clinicopathologic profiles of GISTs and the expression of caveolin-1.
METHODS
One hundred eight cases of formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded tissues of GISTs were immunohistochemically evaluated for the expression of caveolin-1 by using the tissue-array method. Survival data of 98 cases of primary GISTs was analysed according to the expression status of caveolin-1.
RESULTS
Ninety three cases (86.1%) of 108 GISTs did not express caveolin-1 protein. There was no correlation between the caveolin-1 expression status and any of the clinicopathologic variables, including mitosis (p=0.948) and tumor grade (p=0.334). The expression of caveolin-1 was not correlated with other immunohistochemical marker proteins including, c-kit (p=0.373), CD34 (p=0.437) and SMA (p=0.831). On the univariate analysis, the caveolin-1 expression status (p=0.635) was not a significant predictor of the disease-free survival for GIST patients.
CONCLUSIONS
The results of this study suggest that caveolin-1 might act as a tumor suppressor gene in the GIST oncogenesis, but it has no function as a prognostic marker for disease free survival.

• Keywords: Gastrointestinal stromal tumors;Immunohistochemistry;Caveolin-1;Disease-free survival;