CEP3 and CEP17 DNA probe potential in the genetic diagnosis and prognostic prediction of esophageal squamous cell cancer.

The aim of the present study was to investigate the clinical application of molecular pathological diagnosis for the prognosis of Kazakh patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) using centromere enumeration probes (CEPs) for chromosomes 3 and 17. A total of 40 patients with ESCC that had received radical surgical treatment and 10 healthy control participants were enrolled in the present study. Touch preparations of fresh cancerous and normal tissues were completed and fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) was performed to count the copy numbers of CEP 3 and 17, and abnormalities were analyzed, in comparison with routine pathological diagnoses. FISH analysis demonstrated that abnormal copy numbers of CEP 3 and 17 (aneuploidy) were detected in all 40 patients with ESCC. CEP 3 and 17 polyploidy rates differed significantly between poorly differentiated, moderately differentiated and well-differentiated ESCC groups (P<0.05): Well-differentiated, 35.38 and 30.92%; moderately differentiated, 55.81 and 44.43%; and poorly differentiated, 76.26 and 71.90%, respectively. Furthermore, polyploidy rates were significantly increased in the group with lymph node metastasis, as compared with the group without (CEP 3, P=0.0001; CEP 17, P=0.012). Variations in the copy numbers of CEP 3 and 17 were demonstrated to be correlated with the level of differentiation and lymph node metastasis in patients with ESCC. Therefore, the present results indicate that DNA probes may be used to predict prognostic factors in patients with ESCC. Furthermore, FISH technology is an objective and qualitative method that is capable of detecting variations in CEP 3 and 17; therefore, FISH may be used in the genetic diagnosis of ESCC in Kazakh patients.