Jornal de Citologia e Histologia

Prognostic Significance of Heat Shock Protein 90 in Non Muscle Invasive Bladder Cancer Treated by BCG Immunotherapy

Abstract

Faouzia Ajili, Amel Nedri, Nadia Kourda, Afifa maaloul, salma Karay, Amine Darouiche, Mouhamed Chebil and Samir Boubaker

Background: The heat shock protein 90 (HSP90) is overexpressed and highly associated with poor prognosis in many malignancies. However, the role of HSP90 in Non muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) has not been thoroughly elucidated. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship of HSP90 expression with the response to BCG immunotherapy of NMIBC.
Methods: HSP90 expression was evaluated by immunohistochemistry in 43NMIBC samples. The relationships between HSP90 and the response to BCG immunotherapy were analyzed. The results were correlated with clinicopathological characteristics using univariate and multivariate analyses.
Results: Univariate Cox regression analysis of baseline characteristics and HSP90 expression showed that no significant association was found with BCG immunotherapy response (p=0.894). In the other hand, multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that HSP90 protein is not an independent factor of tumor response after BCG immunotherapy (p=0.884).
Conclusion: This study demonstrates that HSP90 could not be a useful prognostic marker for BCG treatment in NMIBC. We emphasize that this was a preliminary study and therefore further confirmation on a larger set of tissues is necessary.