Abstract

Background: Salivary duct carcinoma (SDC) is considered to be a distinct malignancy of the major salivary glands, because of its highly aggressive behaviour, and the high rate of recurrence, metastasis, and disease related death.

Aims: To investigate expression of the proteins involved in the retinoblastoma (pRb) and p53 pathways, which control cell cycle progression at the G1/S checkpoint, and also expression of the c-erbB-2 oncoprotein in SDCs.

Methods: Using a streptavidin–biotin method, five cases of SDC were evaluated immunohistochemically for the presence of cyclin D1, CDK4 (cyclin dependent kinase 4), p16 (CDK2A), pRb (retinoblastoma protein), E2F-1, p53, mdm2 (murine double minute 2), bcl-2, and the c-erbB-2 oncoprotein to determine whether there was a correlation between the expression of these proteins and patient outcome.

Results: All of the cases showed deregulation of the pRb and p53 pathways. Of the five patients analysed, only the patient with longterm survival (10 years) was not positive for c-erbB-2 expression.

Conclusions: c-erbB-2 overexpression was associated with a poor prognosis. Aggressive behaviour, recurrence, and metastatic potential do not appear to be related to cell cycle deregulation, but seem to be associated with the c-erbB-2 oncoprotein, which is involved in matrix degradation and proteolitic activity, in addition to increases in vessel permeability, endothelial cell growth, proliferation, migration, and differentiation. There was a correlation between c-erbB-2 oncoprotein expression and aggressive behaviour in SDCs.