BACKGROUND: The esophageal squamous cell carcinoma treatment strategy is still based on the tumor staging, where tumor histopathologic charac-teristics are the major determinants. In parallel, studies have been developed in order to better understand the tumor biology using immunohistochemical meth-ods with manual quantification evaluating the proliferative and apoptotic activi-ties of the cells. The disadvantages related to the manual method rose the de-velopment of computerized ways to do the image analysis. OBJETIVES: To verify the expressions of the markers Ki-67 (proliferative) and Caspase-3 (apoptotic) and to correlate them with the clinic and pathologic characteristics of the tumor. METHODS: Twenty-nine paraffin embedded blocks were studied, each one con-taining tissue samples from patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma submitted to esophagectomies. The clinic and pathological data were obtained from histopathologic informations and from medical records. The slides were prepared following the routine immunohistochemical method until the point to utilize the specific antibodies (MIB-1 and CPP32). Positive quantification of the immunoreactivity to the proteins Ki-67 and Caspase-3 was performed by the software for computerized image analysis SAMBA (Systeme d' Analyse Micro-photometrique a Balayage Automatique). Statistical analysis was done having P<0.05 considered significant. RESULTS: There was predominance of males (82.7%); age over 50 years; moderately differentiated tumors (68.98%); tumor stage III (72.42%); diameter of lesions >3cm; and lesions located in the lower third of the organ. The mean score indexes found were 62.05% for Ki-67 and 86.06% for Caspase-3 and there was no correlation with the clinic or pathologi-cal characteristics as gender, age and tumor staging. There was significant dif-ference of Ki-67 expression among the histological grades (P=0.047) and corre-lation between the evaluated indexes (r=0.41 and P=0.032). CONCLUSION: The protein expressions were high and the Caspase-3 protein activity was higher than the Ki-67, without correlation with clinic or pathological characteristics as gender, age, tumor staging, grade of lesion depth and lymph node invasion.
Ki-67; Caspase-3; Image cytometry; Esophageal carcinoma
