Avaliação da imunoexpressão de proteínas da apoptose em neoplasias de glândulas salivares

Abstract

The salivary gland neoplasms are an heterogeneous group of lesions with extremely diversified clinical pathological features and varied biological behavior. The pleomorphic adenoma (PA) is the most common neoplasm in this group and affects major and minor salivary glands. A common feature of these tumors is the slow growth, regardless of their benign or malignant nature. Apoptosis or programmed cell death is an event that participates in the control of cell population, tumor growth and involves a complex network of biochemical events of which take part several proteins that works on cascade in order to fragment the DNA. The aim of this study was to evaluate, by the immunohistochemistry, the expression of pro and antiapoptotic proteins in salivary gland neoplasms, in special PAs and in normal salivary glands associated and not associated with the tumor and other gland tumors. We selected 31 cases of PA of minor salivary gland, 12 PA of major salivary glands, 11 normal glands and 11 normal glands adjacent to PA of major salivar gland, 10 normal glands adjacent to PA of minor salivar gland and other salivary gland neoplasms, all embedded in paraffin. The immunohistochemistry technique was performed and semi-quantitative analysis of the expression of these proteins was done by "QuickScore" method. Data were analyzed by SPSS (version 19.0 for Windows. Chicago, IL). We found higher expression of antiapoptotic proteins in the tumors evaluated. No association was found between the clinical and pathological characteristics and the proteins evaluated.