Expression of ezrin and metastatic tumor antigen in osteosarcomas of the jaw.

Aims And Background: Ezrin is a membrane-cytoskeleton linker protein involved in regulation of the growth and metastatic behavior of cancer cells. Metastatic tumor antigen (MTA) is a potential metastasis-associated protein. The objective of this study was to evaluate the expression of ezrin and MTA and their correlation with clinicopathological features in osteosarcomas of the jaw.

Methods: We analyzed ezrin and MTA protein levels by immunohistochemistry in 31 osteosarcomas of the jaw.

Results: The mean age at diagnosis was 39 years and half of the patients were male. The mandible (n = 19) was more frequently involved than the maxilla (n = 12). The predominant histological type was chondroblastic (58.1%) and 24 patients (77.4%) were classified as having a high grade of malignancy. Immunoreactivity for ezrin was identified in 6 of 31 cases (19.4%), while 77.4% displayed expression of MTA. All ezrin-positive patients had high-grade tumors. The high-grade tumors (n = 24) had a higher rate of MTA expression (42.9% vs 87.5%). Expression of ezrin and MTA was not significantly different according to age, sex, tumor site, histological type, and tumor ploidy. Follow-up information was available for 13 patients, with a mean follow-up time of 26.7 months (range, 6-48 months). At the time of last follow-up, 5 (38.5%) patients had died of disease and 8 patients (61.5%) were alive with no evidence of disease. Expression of ezrin and MTA was not significantly different according to the follow-up data.

Conclusions: In our study, high-grade tumors had a higher rate of ezrin and MTA expression. This expression pattern indicates that ezrin and MTA positivity can be additional prognostic markers in osteosarcoma of the jaw.