Expression of endoglin and podoplanin in early and advanced oral squamous cell carcinoma

Objectives: Angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis are correlated with tumor growth and lymph node metastasis in cases of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). Endoglin is one of the representative vascular endothelial cell markers. Podoplanin is also a representative marker used in order to detect lymphatic endothelial cells. The aim of this study was to determine the correlation between the expression of endoglin/podoplanin and clinical variables associated with OSCC progression. Materials and Methods: Paraffin embedded tissue specimens from 21 patients diagnosed with OSCC were used in this study. Ten patients were diagnosed with early clinical stage (I or II) and 11 patients with advanced clinical stage (III or IV) OSCC. Five patients had positive lymph node involvement. Primary antibodies for endoglin and podoplanin were used to perform the immunohistochemical detection of the vascular and lymphatic endothelial cells. The expression of endoglin and podoplanin was examined by an image analysis program in the three most highly expressed regions of each specimen. Results: The average endoglin expression was observed to be 1.691 +/- 0.920 in the advanced stage (III, IV) specimens and 0.797 +/- 0.583 in the early stage (I, II) specimens (P=0.020). The average expression of podoplanin was 0.286 +/- 0.228 in the advance stage (III, IV) specimens and 0.374 +/- 0.157 in the early stage (I, II) specimens (P>0.05). There was no statistically significant difference in the expression of endoglin and podoplanin, regardless of whether or not the lymph node was positive. Conclusion: The expression of endoglin was significantly higher in the advanced stage specimens than that in the early stage specimens. Therefore, we concluded that endoglin is a useful molecular marker for use in the evaluation of the progression of OSCC.