Abstract:

Objective  To investigate the expression of signal transduction and activators of transcription-3(p-STAT3), matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP-2) andvascular endothelial growth factor(VEGF)in retinoblastoma(RB) and the relationships  among p-STAT3, MMP-2﹑VEGF and tumor development.  Methods  Immunohistochemical technique was used to detect expressions of p-STAT3, MMP-2 and VEGF in 39 cases of paraffin embedded RB samples. Quantitative analysis of expressions of p-STAT3,MMP-2 and VEGF were assessed by measuring the mean gray scale of RB tissues with LEICA IM 50 Color Pathologic Analysis System. Differences of expressions of p-STAT3,MMP-2 and VEGF in each clinical and pathological stage were statistically analyzed.  Results The positive expression rate of p-STAT3 was 66.7%（26/39）, of MMP-2 was 79.5 %（31/39）and of VEGF was 64.1 %（25/39）. There was a statistically significant positive correlation between expressions of p-STAT3，　MMP2 and VEGF with optic nerve invasion（P＜0.05,P＜0.01,P＜0.01）, also there was a statistically significant negative correlation between expressions of p-STAT3，　MMP2 and VEGF with differentiation of cancers（P＜0.01,P＜0.01,P＜0.05）, but there was no correlation with age, gender and diseased eyes of patients with RB. Also, there was astatistically significant positive correlation between expression of p-STAT3 and expression of MMP-2 (P＜0.01) and between expression of p-STAT3 and expression of VEGF (P＜0.01).  Conclusion The positive expression levels of p-STAT3, MMP-2 and VEGF may correlate with tumor invasion and metastasis and they may promote invasion and metastasis of RB.

Key words: Retinoblastoma; Signal transduction and activators of transcription-3; Matrix metalloproteinase-2; Vascular endothelial growth factor; Immunohistochemistry