Expression of Foxp3 in ovarian cancer and its clinical significance

XIE Quanqin; CHEN Lujun; WU Changping; DENG Guohua; XU Bin; JIANG Jingting

Abstract：Objective To investigate the expression of Forkhed box protein 3(Foxp3) in ovarian cancer and its relationship with prognosis. Methods Expression of Foxp3 was assessed by immunohistochemistry in tissue microarrays containing tumor tissues from 45 ovarian patients and 7 normal ovarian tissues. The rank sum test was utilized to compare the differences between different path-ological types. Chi-square test was utilized to analyze recationship between Foxp3 expression and clinicopathological features. Kaplan-Meier method was utilized to analyze the correlation between Foxp3 expression and prognosis. The multi-factor Cox proportional hazards model was used to estimate the intensity of association between different clinicopathological features and mortal outcomes. Results The Foxp3 expression was located in nucleus of tumor cells. The expression of Foxp3 was related to FIGO stage(P<0. 05), but age, patho-logical type, differentiation, tumor size and lymph node metastasis(P>0. 05). Kaplan-Meier method revealed that patients with lower Foxp3 expression had prolonged survival time than that with higher Foxp3 expression(61. 83 months vs. 25. 03 months, P= 0. 03). The Cox regression model multifactor analyze showed that without postoperative chemotherapy(HR = 6. 603, 95%CI: 1. 147-32. 057, P =0. 03), higher FIGO stage(HR = 3. 861, 95%CI: 1. 427-10. 417, P<0. 01) were independent prognostic factors of ovarian cancer. Conclusion Expression of Foxp3 was related to FIGO stage, and can predict survival of ovarian cancer.