The clinical significance of IL-17A expression and distribution in ovarian cancer

CHEN Xian; ZHANG Xiaojie; SHANG Wenwen; HUANG Lei; SUN Ruihong; HUANG Peijun; WANG Fang

doi:10.13431/j.cnki.immunol.j.20180082

Abstract：This research was performed to investigate the expression of IL-17 A in ovarian cancer (OC) tissues, as well as its association with clinicopathological features. Immunohistochemistry method was applied to detect the distribution and expression of IL-17 A infiltrated in ovarian cancer tissues (n=34), borderline ovarian tumor tissues (n=23) and benign ovarian tumor tissues (n=24). The relationship between IL-17 A expression and clinicopathological characteristics including age, tumor sizes, pathological type, clinical stages, differentiation grades, and lymph node metastasis were analyzed in ovarian cancer patients. Analysis of Immunohistochemistry showed that IL-17 A mainly located in lymphocytes, while almost none found in tumor cells. Further, the expression rate of IL-17 A in ovarian cancer tissues (64. 7％, 22/34) was significantly higher than that in borderline ovarian tumor tissues (21. 7％, 5/23) and benign ovarian tumor tissues (8. 3％, 2/24) (P<0. 001; P<0. 000 1). Moreover, the expression of IL-17 A was positively correlated with differentiation degree and lymph node status in ovarian cancer patients (P<0. 05), while not with age, tumor size, pathological type, clinical stages. In conclusion, the excessive expression of IL-17 A in ovarian cancer tissues may participate in progression of ovarian cancer patients, which could be a poor prognosis marker for ovarian cancer.