Prognostic Value of CD10 among Tunisian Patients with Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma

Introduction: CD10 expression was identified as a marker of poor prognosis in several types of cancer. However, its impact on the survival of Tunisian NPC patients has not been discussed. So, our objective was to confirm the prognostic value of this marker, in addition to its relationship to clinicopathologic parameters. Materials and Methods: Imunohistochemistry method was performed on formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded sections of 66 cases of NPC, 6 patients with inflammatory nasopharynx and 20 normal mucosa tissues. Results: CD10 expression was detected in 66.66 % of the NPC with predominant staining in stromal cells (81.81%). While, no expression of CD10 was noted in control group (inflammatory nasopharyngeal lesions and normal nasopharynx mucosa). CD10 positive cases were correlated with increasing tumor size (p=0.001) and lymph node metastasis (p=0.034). Furthermore, with the Kaplan-Meier test, a strong association was observed between the expression of CD10 and the recurrence status (p = 0.003). Multivariate Cox proportional hazard regression analysis showed that CD10 and lymph node metastasis factors were independent predictors of time to recurrence among NPC patients with respectively p=0.001 and p=0.044. Conclusion: The present study confirms the prognostic value of CD10 expression and suggests its strong effect on aggressive behavior of nasopharyngeal carcinoma.