Prognostic significance of erythropoietin expression in human endometrial carcinoma

Abstract

Objective To study whether the Disease Activity Score (DAS) is a valid measure of disease activity in undifferentiated arthritis (UA). Methods Data from a randomized, double‐blind, placebo‐controlled trial of methotrexate (MTX) and placebo involving 110 patients with UA were used. Data included baseline and 3, 6, 9, and 12 months, as well as diagnosis at 18 months. Validity of the DAS was analyzed using factor analysis, correlations with disease activity variables, correlations with changes in disability and joint damage, differences in DAS between diagnoses, and detecting the difference between placebo and MTX. Results Three disease activity factors were retrieved from the disease activity variables: patient reported outcomes, tender and swollen joints, and acute phase reactants. The DAS had its highest correlations (r > 0.77) with tender joint counts, followed by swollen joint counts (r > 0.63) and patient reported outcomes (r > 0.30), but the DAS correlated less with C‐reactive protein levels (r = 0.32). Over time, the DAS was related to the Health Assessment Questionnaire response with an odds ratio of 4.1 (95% confidence interval 2.1–8.0), but not with change in joint damage. At 18 months, the mean DAS was 2.6 for rheumatoid arthritis patients, 2.2 for UA patients, and 1.9 for patients in remission (P = 0.001). The DAS discriminated better than all single variables between MTX and placebo, with a Guyatt's effect size of 0.89. Conclusion The DAS appears to be a reasonably valid measure of disease activity for use in UA clinical trials.

Hypoxia-associated markers in gastric carcinogenesis and HIF-2α in gastric and gastro-oesophageal cancer prognosis

“…Erythropoietin and Epo-R have been shown to be expressed in a number of cancers and involved in breast (Acs et al, 2002), endometrial (Acs et al, 2004), melanoma (Kumar et al, 2005), prostate (Feldman et al, 2006) and Barrett's oesophageal (Griffiths et al, 2007a) carcinogenesis. There appear to be no other studies that have assessed these proteins in gastric carcinogenesis.…”

“…Hypoxia-inducible factor1a is a key mediator of transcription and upregulates genes involved in a variety of processes: vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF); erythropoietin (Epo) and its receptor (Epo-R), which regulates erythropoiesis by stimulating the growth and differentiation of red blood cell precursors (Yasuda et al, 2003;Ratcliffe, 2007). Erythropoietin and its receptor (Epo-R) are expressed in a number of cancers and are involved in breast (Acs et al, 2002), endometrial (Acs et al, 2004), melanoma (Kumar et al, 2005) and prostate (Feldman et al, 2006) tumorigenesis.…”

Increased expression of hypoxia-inducible factor 1α in type I and type II endometrial carcinomas

“…This study did not compare type I vs type II endometrial adenocarcinoma. 22 Under hypoxic conditions, HIF-1a binds to DNA at hypoxia response elements (HREs), thereby activating the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) gene. 23 Thus, HIF-1a plays an important role in tumor angiogenesis, thus promoting tumor cell proliferation and growth and also helps in metastases.…”

Erythropoietin Receptor Expression in Non-Small Cell Lung Carcinoma: A Question of Antibody Specificity

“…Their combined occurrence was also reported to be present in ductal carcinoma of the breast but absent in normal ductal epithelium and in benign pathologies, such as hyperplasia of usual type, ductal papilloma, fibrocystic change [3], and sclerosing adenosis [4]. Expression of EPOR has also been claimed in melanoma [5] and cervical squamous [6], papillary thyroid [7], endometrial [8], and head and neck squamous [9] carcinomas and numerous tumor cell lines [10,11].…”