Expressions and clinical significance of B7-H1 in malignant cutaneous tumors

ZHENG Yunyan; CHEN Lujun; XU Bin; JIANG Jingting; WU Changping

Abstract：Objective To explore the expressions of costimulatory molecule B7-H1 in malignant cutaneous tumor tissues and their clinical significance. Methods The expressions of B7-H1 were detected by ElivsionTM plus immunohistochemical technique in tumor tissues from 51 patients with squamous cell carcinoma ( SCC group) and 93 patients with non-squamous cell carcinoma. Tissues obtained from 10 patients with actinic keratosis ( precancerous lesions group) and 10 patients with benign cutaneous tumors ( benign tumor group) were chosen as control. The positive rates of B7-H1 in precancerous lesions group, benign tumor group, SCC group and non-squamous cell carcinoma were analyzed. The relationships between expressions of B7-H1 and clinicopathological characteristics ( age, sex, tumor size, tumor location, exposure, location and degree of differentiation) in SCC were investigated. Results The B7-H1 was characterized by diffuse brown staining and mainly expressed in cell membrane and cytoplasm. The positive rates of B7-H1 in precancerous lesions group, benign tumor group and SCC group were 10?0% ( 1/10) , 40?0% ( 4/10) and 76?5% ( 39/51) , respec-tively. There was no significant correlation between expression of B7-H1 and clinicopathological characteristics. The B7-H1 was also ex-pressed in common epithelial origin non-squamous cell carcinoma, including basal cell carcinoma, sweat gland carcinoma, Paget?s dis-ease, adenoid cystic carcinoma and sebaceous carcinoma with positive expression rates of 81?4% ( 35/43) , 70?0% ( 7/10) , 100?0%( 3/3) , 100?0% ( 2/2) , 100?0% ( 1/1) and 76?2% ( 16/21) . No expression was observed in the non-epithelial origin bulge fibrosar-coma. Conclusion B7-H1 is involved in the carcinogenesis and development of malignant cutaneous tumor.