Study of Hypoxia Induced Factor-1Alpha (HIF-1A) and Carbonic Anhydrase 9 (CAIX) in clear cell Renal Cell Carcinoma (ccRCC)
Author(s): Anna Tassoudi, Ioannis Stefanidis, Theodoros Eleftheriadis, Vasilios Tzortzis, Vasilios Tassoudis, Maria Ioannou
Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the immunohistochemical expression of hypoxia inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α) and carbonic anhydrase 9 (CAIX) in renal cell carcinoma and the association with clinicopathological parameters.
Methods: We retrospectively analyzed 42 ccRCC cases immunohistochemically for their expression status of HIF-1α, correlating this status with CAIX expression and clinicopathological data. The Kruskal-Wallis H test and the Mann-Whitney U test were used for statistical analysis. A Kendall’s tau-b test was performed to find possible correlation between HIF-1 alpha and CAIX.
Results: We found significant correlation between HIF-1a nuclear staining and CAIX immunostaining. We also found a positive relation between high HIF-1alpha immunoscore and higher tumor grades (Furhman 3 and 4). In addition, we detected correlation between HIF-1alpha overexpression and angioinvasion.
Conclusion: Our results suggest that HIF-1 alpha and CAIX in clear cell renal cell carcinoma are associated with histopathological prognostic factors. Since HIF-1α inhibitors are under investigation for the treatment of many human tumors, further investigation, in larger series of patients, might elucidate the exact role of HIF1α/CAIX in clear cell renal cell carcinoma and possibly reveal novel predictive tissue markers.