Abstract:

To study the expression of β-catenin in ovarian serous cystadenocarcinoma tissues and disscuss the clinical significances of β-catenin in the diagnosis of ovarian serous cystadenocarcinoma.Methods RT-PCR method was used to detect the expressions of β-catenin mRNA in tissue samples of 36 ovarian serous cystadenocarcinoma,10 ovarian serous cystadenoma and 10 normal ovary tissues.The expressions of β-catenin in 60 ovarian serous cystadenocarcinoma,24 ovarian serous cystadenoma and 24 normol ovarian tissues were detected by immunohistochemistry.Results The expression level of β-catenin mRNA in ovarian serous cystadenocarcinoma tissues（1.001±0.192）was significantly higher than those in normal ovarian tissues（0.588±0.128）and ovarian serous cystadenoma tissues（0.600±0.262）（P＜0.05）.The expression of β-catenin was mainly located in cytoplasm;the positive rate of β-catenin in ovarian serous cystadenocarcinoma group was 88.33%,which was significantly higher than those in normal ovarian group(20.83%)and ovarian serous cystadenoma group(33.33%) (P<0.05).There was significant difference in the expression level of β-catenin in ovarian cancer between different clinical stages,while the positive rate in stage Ⅰ was 77.77% and in stage Ⅳ was 93.87%(P<0.05);however,there was no significant difference in the expression level of β-catenin in ovarian cancer between different pathlogical grades,while the positive rates in ovarian cancer for G1,G2 and G3 were 85.00%,89.28%,and 91.63%， respectively;there was no significant difference between various groups(P>0.05).Conclusion The expression level of β-catenin in ovarian cancer is higher,the expression level of β-catenin is associated with the clinical staging of ovarian cancer but unrelated with pathological grade;β-catenin may play an important role in the detection and diagnosis of   ovarian cancer.

Key words: ovarian serous cystadenocarcinoma;β-catenin;reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction;immunohistochemistry