Peritumoral stroma and systemic inflammatory response in cervical cancer

Abstract

Objective: To compare cervical stroma in advanced cervical cancer with the control group; to compare, in the pre-treatment period, hemogram parameters in patients with advanced cervical cancer with the same parameters as the control group; and to verify if there is an association of stromal markers with prognostic factors in cervical cancer. Materials and methods: We prospectively evaluated 16 patients diagnosed with advanced invasive cervical cancer. A control group of 22 patients was used (uterine leiomyoma). Immunohistochemistry was performed to verify the stromal immunostaining of alpha-smooth muscle actin (SMA) and fibroblast activation protein alpha (FAP). Immunostainings and hemogram parameters were compared using Fisher‘s exact and Mann-Whitney Test, respectively. Results: Strong FAP immunostaining was more frequent in patients with cervical cancer when compared with patients with leiomyoma (P = 0.0002). Regarding SMA, strong immunostaining was also found more in the group of cancer patients compared to the control group (P < 0.00001). The neutrophil--lymphocyte ratio (NLR) values were higher in the cancer patient group compared to the control group (P = 0.0019). There was no association of the parameters studied with prognostic factors. Conclusions: Strong FAP and SMA immunostaining was found more in patients with cervical cancer when compared to the control group. NLR values were also higher in cervical cancer.