Bcl-2 expression was positive in 39 patients (12.7%) and showed a significant negative correlation with depth of invasion and lymph node metastasis. p53 expression was observed in 105 patients (34.1%) and was significantly associated with depth of invasion, lymph node metastasis, distant metastasis, and intestinal type.
Bcl-2 expression was strongly associated with both apoptosis loss (pOR, 6.9; trend test, P < 0.0001) and presence of lymph node metastases (pOR, 5.7; trend test, P = 0.002).
Aneuploidy, oncogene expression (p53, HER-2/neu, bcl-2), and hormone receptors were not significantly related to lymph node metastasis and cancer recurrence.
At this time, bcl-2 and LMP1 presence are not significant indicators of outcome; however, although they are not directly related to survival, expression of both bcl-2 and LMP1 was strongly correlated with cervical lymph node metastasis, which is a potent predictor of patient survival.
BTG1 expression decreased in NSCLC and correlated significantly with lymph node metastasis; clinical stage; histological grade; poor overall survival; cell proliferation; cell cycles; cell apoptosis; and migration and invasion in NSCLC cell by regulating CyclinD1, Bcl-2, and MMP-9 protein expression, suggesting that BTG1 may play important roles as a negative regulator to NSCLC cell.
Compared with those in the negative control group, the relative expression levels of Bcl-2 and Sirt1 mRNAs in the experimental group were significantly decreased (p<0.001). miR-204 may be involved in the occurrence and development of RB, which is significantly associated with clinical tissue differentiation, neural infiltration and lymph node metastasis in patients. miR-204 may inhibit proliferation and promote apoptosis of RB cells through downregulating the expression of Bcl-2 and Sirt1 in RB.
Expression of Bcl-2 mRNA detected by ISH consistently differed from that detected by IC, especially in lymph node metastases (whereas no relevant variations of Bcl-2 mRNA levels were found in treated vs. untreated CaP patients).
Furthermore, in p53-negative tumors, a strong linear association was found between the number of oncogene alterations and risk of lymph node metastasis among Bcl-2-positive tumors (trend test, p = 0.03).
Furthermore, the expression of integrins and Bcl-2 in LCs had a tendency to correlate with the clinical stage of cancer progression, including lymph node metastasis.
Growth characteristics of the cancers (superficially spreading, penetrating or invasive, lymph node metastasis) were compared with immunohistochemical expression of single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) protein (apoptosis indicator), bcl-2 and p53 (apoptosis-associated), Ki-67 (cell proliferation), and E-cadherin (cell adhesion) proteins.
In pretreatment curettage specimens, the presence of unfavorable levels of p53 or bcl-2 or of nonendometrioid histologic features, or combinations of those, significantly predicted lymph node status, thus facilitating the preoperative identification of patients at risk of lymph node metastases.
It was further observed that loss of pSer70 Bcl-2 expression was associated with significantly shorter survival (P < 0.05) and correlated with clinical stages and lymph node metastasis (P < 0.05 and P < 0.05, respectively).
No statistically significant correlation could be demonstrated between Bcl-2 immunoreactivity and the age or sex of the patients, tumor size, and lymph node metastasis.
Oncogenic control of programmed cell death is therefore important in melanoma progression and bcl-2 measurement provides a useful marker of prognosis for regional lymph node metastases.
PDGFR-alpha expression was observed in 39.2% of the breast carcinomas and showed an association with lymph node metastasis (P = 0.0079), HER-2 expression (P = 0.0265) and Bcl2 expression (P = 0.0121).
Positive immunoreactivity for bcl-2 oncoprotein was seen in 14 of the 40 tumor tissue samples (35%) and was found to be associated with a significantly higher incidence of synchronous liver metastasis (P = 0.043); however, there was no correlation between the immunoreactivity for bcl-2 oncoprotein and tumor size, depth of tumor invasion, lymph node metastasis, or clinical stage of the disease.
Survivin expression was closely correlated with tumor differentiation, lymph node metastasis and TNM stage (P<0.05), while Bcl-2 expression was only associated with TNM stage (P<0.05).
The Bcl-2 expression correlated with stage pT3 and T4 gastric cancer (P < 0.05), with the intestinal type according to Lauren (P < 0.001), ulcerated type according to Bormann's classification (P < 0.01), and with local lymph node metastases (P < 0.05).
The co-expression of PR significantly modified the effect of Bcl-2 on the odds for lymph-node metastasis, suggesting the existence of a synergistic interaction between the 2 parameters.
The evaluation of bcl-2 expression and extent of apoptosis may provide useful prognostic information on breast cancer patients; however while increased apoptosis is strongly associated with the progression from primary carcinomas to lymph node metastases, bcl-2 does not seem to play a significant role in this process.