Immunohistochemical Expression of NQO1 in Premalignant Lesions and Squamous Cell Carcinoma of Cervix and its Correlation with Histopatholigic Factors

Cervical cancer is one of the most important malignancies in women which has a unique progression due to premalignant lesions. The present study was performed with aim to evaluate the expression of NQO1 protein in patients with premalignant cervical lesions and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of the cervix and its comparison with non-dysplastic tissues.

In this cross-sectional study, paraffin-embedded blocks of patients with cervical SCC and different degrees of dysplasia and non-dysplastic tissue during 2018 to 2020 were selected as the control group from the pathology ward of Mashhad Ghaem Hospital to assess NQO1 expression by immunohistochemistry with mouse monoclonal antibody against human NQO1. Demographic data, clinicopathologic features, and survival data were assessed. Data were analyzed by SPSS (version 22) and Chi-square test, Fisher's exact test, analysis of variance, Tukey post-hoc test and log rank test. P<0.05 was considered statistically significant.

In this study, 152 subjects including 31 patients with cervical SCC, 91 with different degrees of dysplasia and 30 non-dysplastic tissue were evaluated for NQO1 protein expression. Increased expression of NQO1 protein in SCC, CIN3, CIN2, CIN1 and healthy patients was 96.8%, 96.7%, 73.3%, 6.5% and 3.3%, respectively (p <0.0001). No significant correlation was found between NQO1 protein expression with tumor type (p=0.99), lymph node involvement (p=0.33), and tumor grade (p=0.40).

The expression of NQO1 protein in lesions with severe dysplasia was more than moderate dysplasia and in lesions with moderate dysplasia was more than mild dysplastic lesions, indicating the possible role of NQO1 protein expression changes in progression of cancer and increased severity of these lesions.