Immunohistochemical study on the expression of carbohydrate antigens in normal squamous epithelia and squamous cell carcinomas of the uterine cervix

The expression of 4 kinds of carbohydrate antigens, CA50, CA19-9, sialyl SSEA-1, and DU-PAN-2 was studied immunohistochemically in 15 normal cervical squamous epithelia and 49 cervical carcinomas. (1) In normal epithelia, CA50 and CA19-9 were expressed in all cell layers and all cell layers except for the basal layer, respectively, and a gradual decrease in the intensity of staining was observed in the upper layer. Sialyl SSEA-1 was expressed only in the superficial layer, but DU-PAN-2 was not found in any normal epithelia. (2) In cervical carcinomas, CA50, CA19-9, sialyl SSEA-1 and DU-PAN-2 were observed in 51.0%, 49.0%, 55.1% and 26.7%, respectively. (3) The number of Ki67 positive cells tended to be lower in the area with sialyl SSEA-1 immunostaining. (4) In the cases in which sialyl SSEA-1 positive cells were distributed diffusely in cancer nests, the incidence of lymph node metastasis was significantly higher. These result suggest that the expression of CA50, CA19-9 and sialyl SSEA-1 is related to the differentiation of normal squamous epithelial cells, and sialyl SSEA-1 may be related to cell differentiation also in cervical carcinomas, and the features of its expression may be useful in predicting the biologic properties of cervical carcinomas.