Kayode Adebowale Adelusola*, Ayodeji Olaonipekun Olutunde, Abiola Adeyemi Adefidipe, Norah Olubunmi Akinola, Adegoke Olaniyi Aremu, Ganiat Olutoyin Omoniyi-Esan, Adeleke Lukman Bisiriyu and David Adesanya Ofusori
Background: Cervical cancer remains the most common female genital tract malignancy, despite being preventable and possibly curative. The burden is enormous in resource-poor nations, where organized preventive screening methods are yet to be developed. Research efforts geared toward finding immunological and possibly therapeutic and prognostic markers are on-going and constitute the basis of this study.
Objectives: To determine the expression of the immune marker HLA-DR in cervical cancer patients as well as its possible associations with p16 and p53 in cervical cancer patients in Southwestern Nigeria.
Methods: Thirty and-eight cases of cervical cancer seen within a period of two years at two tertiary health institutions in Nigeria were processed for immunohistochemistry with HLA-DR, p53 and p16. Semi quantitative immunohistochemistry scoring was performed, and the results were analyzed via SPSS version 25. The expression of HLA-DR was correlated with that of p53 and p16, with the level of significance set at p<0.5. Pearson correlation analysis of independent variables was performed.
Results: The peak age of cervical cancer incidence was 50-59 years. Thirty patients had squamous cell carcinoma. High and moderate expression of HLA-DR was observed in 23.7% of the patients, 28.9% of the p16 patients and 7.9%of the p53 patients. There was no relationship between HLA-DR expression and age (r=-0.23, p=0.159), or p16 (r=-0.159, p=0.340), but there was a strong negative relationship with p53 (r=0.92, p=0.581).
Conclusion: Among the three markers used, p16 was most strongly associated with cervical cancer, followed by HLA-DR and p53. HLA-DR is likely not a reliable biological marker of cervical cancer and may not be a useful therapeutic target in cervical cancer.
Published Date: 2024-10-29; Received Date: 2024-09-25
