JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Current standard treatments for recurrent cervical cancer patients are less effective and associated with severe toxicity. A recent rational approach for the discovery of new therapies is based on the alterations in the molecular biology of the cancer cells. One of the emerging molecular changes in cancer cells is the aberrant expression of Cytochrome 1B1 (CYP1B1). This unique enzyme was selectively overexpressed in several cancers.

Objective:

The aim of current study is to examine CYP1B1 expression in cervical cancers and to assess the enzyme’s relationship to several clinicopathological features.

Methods:

Immunohistochemistry was used to examine CYP1B1 expression in 100 patient samples with cervical cancer and10 samples with normal cervix.

Results:

CYP1B1 expression was identified in the majority of cervical cancer samples (91%), while healthy normal cervix tissues exhibited no expression. Importantly, there was a strong difference in the expression of CYP1B1 between normal and tumorous cervix tissues (P= .01). Moreover, a significant frequency of CYP1B1 expression was found in patients with advanced grades of disease (P= .03), and patients having metastasis to lymph nodes (P= .01). Surprisingly, there was a significantly high expression of CYP1B1 in patients with a high human papillomavirus prevalence (HPV)16/18 (P= .04).

Conclusions:

The strong differential profile in CYP1B1 expression between cervical cancer and normal cervix tissues strongly suggests that CYP1B1 may be used as a target for future therapeutic exploitation.