Comparative analysis of immunohistochemical markers with invasiveness and histologic differentiation in squamous cell carcinoma and basal cell carcinoma of the skin.

Background: This study evaluates several tumor-related markers to examine the expression pattern of markers according to the invasiveness and histopathologic differentiation of squamous cell carcinoma and basal cell carcinoma.

Methods: Ninety-four cases of squamous cell carcinoma and 108 cases of basal cell carcinoma using tissue array in order to determine correlations between the expression of Ki-67, p53, EGFR, CD44v6, MMP-1 and MMP-3, invasiveness and histologic differentiation. In order to determine invasiveness, we measured the depth of invasion in resected tissues.

Results: The depth of invasion showed a correlation with CD44v6 expression of tumor cell in both squamous cell carcinoma and basal cell carcinoma (P = 0.009, P = 0.036, respectively) and with the MMP-1 expression of stromal cell in squamous cell carcinoma (P = 0.010). The differentiation of squamous cell carcinoma was correlated with Ki-67 index. The loss of palisading arrangement in basal cell carcinoma was correlated with the MMP-1 expression of stromal cells (P = 0.045).

Conclusions: CD44v6 and MMP-1, expressed in tumor cells and stromal cells respectively, are significant markers associated with the invasiveness of tumors in squamous cell carcinoma and basal cell carcinoma of the skin and that it will be helpful to evaluate the invasiveness by measuring the expression of these markers.