You are here

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Original research
Human chorionic gonadotropin expression in endometrial hyperplasia and endometrial carcinoma: could it be a new marker?
  1. Mine Daggez1,
  2. Mehmet Dolanbay2,
  3. Hulya Akgun3,
  4. Varol Gülseren1,
  5. Sinem Akça Keklikcioglu2,
  6. Bulent Ozcelik1 and
  7. Ibrahim Serdar Serin1
  1. 1 Gynecologic Oncology, Erciyes University, Kayseri, Turkey
  2. 2 Obstetrics and Gynecology, Erciyes University, Kayseri, Turkey
  3. 3 Pathology, Erciyes University, Kayseri, Turkey
  1. Correspondence to Dr Mine Daggez, Gynecologic Oncology, Erciyes University, Talas 38280, Turkey; minedaggez{at}gmail.com

Abstract

Objective Human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) is a glycoprotein hormone expressed in a variety of tumors and is correlated with advanced stage disease and poor prognosis. This study aimed to determine hCG expression immunohistochemically in endometrial specimens obtained from patients with normal endometrium, endometrial hyperplasia, and endometrial carcinoma, and to determine if there is a correlation between invasiveness and hCG positivity.

Methods The histologic materials and medical records for patients diagnosed with normal endometrium, endometrial hyperplasia with/without atypia, and endometrial carcinoma between September 2017 and September 2020 were retrospectively reviewed. Immunohistochemical staining for hCG was performed and analyzed semi-quantitatively.

Results A total of 96 patients were included: normal endometrium (27.1%) (n=26); endometrial hyperplasia without atypia (25%) (n=24); atypical endometrial hyperplasia (22.9%) (n=22); endometrioid endometrial cancer (25%) (n=24). Median age of the patients was 48 (range 28–81) years. hCG was positive in 8.3% of patients with endometrial hyperplasia without atypia, 18.2% in those with atypical endometrial hyperplasia, and 41.7% in those with endometrial cancer (p<0.001). None of the patients with normal endometrium had a positive hCG. The rate of endometrial cancer was 62.5% in the hCG-positive group and 17.5% in the hCG-negative group.

Conclusion hCG is expressed to a significantly greater degree in patients with atypical endometrial hyperplasia and endometrial carcinoma and it may be potentially used as a marker for these lesions.

  • Endometrium
  • Endometrial Neoplasms
  • Endometrial Hyperplasia
  • Uterine Cancer

Data availability statement

In accordance with the journal’s guidelines, we will provide our data for independent analysis by a selected team by the Editorial Team for the purposes of additional data analysis or for the reproducibility of this study in other centers if such is requested.

https://doi.org/10.1136/ijgc-2023-004279

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    Data availability statement

    In accordance with the journal’s guidelines, we will provide our data for independent analysis by a selected team by the Editorial Team for the purposes of additional data analysis or for the reproducibility of this study in other centers if such is requested.

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Twitter @Mine Daggez|MD

    • Contributors The concept and design of the study, and manuscript preparation, editing, and review were performed by MD and VG. Data acquisition was performed by MD and SAK. Data analysis and interpretation were performed by all the authors. Statistical analysis was performed by VG. MD is the guarantor.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.