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Molecular profiling in
serous epithelial ovarian cancer
With improved treatment regimens, ovarian cancer patients can be expected to have longer survival, although studies show that this is not always the case. Therefore, there is a need to define prognostic markers that would be helpful in patient management. In our study published in International Journal of Cancer, we monitored protein expression of ten genes we had previously identified by microarray analysis as being good candidates based on their pattern of RNA expression. As we used tissue arrays we were able to look in a large cohort of patients the expression of Ahr, Paep, Madh3, Ran, Met, Mek1, Ccne1, Ccd20, Cks1 and Cas. Importantly, we observed that high expression of Ran or Cdc20 was associated with a shorter patient survival when all invasive tumors were compared. As higher grade tumors are usually associated with poor patient prognosis, we also evaluate if Ran and Cdc20 proteins could separate patients with a different prognosis within a same tumor grade. Expression of Ran or Cdc20 was able to define patient prognosis of patients with grade 3 (poorly differentiated) and high expression of Ran was associated with poor prognosis of patients with grade 2 (moderately differentiated). If these results can be confirmed on a larger cohort, it should be possible to use the protein expression of Ran and Cdc20 as biomarkers in patient management.
Bibliographical reference:
Centre de recherche CHUM et Institut du cancer de Montréal, Hôpital Notre-Dame, Montréal, Québec, Canada
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