Immunohistochemical study of fatty acid synthase in ovarian neoplasms

In order to evaluate the prognostic significance of fatty acid synthase (FA S), the key enzyme in fatty acid biosynthesis, in ovarian benign and malign ant tumors 98 patients with ovarian masses were immunohistochemically evalu ated. Histologic features of the lesions and expression for FAS were statis tically associated with clinical data and disease-free survival over a 5-ye ar follow-up period. The mean age of patients was 65 years. TNM surgical st ages were I in 31.8%, II in 28.2% and III in 40% of cases. The 5-year disea se-free survival of the 85 malignant common epithelial ovarian tumors was 4 7.1% while 35.3 of patients died with active disease. Seventy-eight (79.6%) out of 98 cases expressed FAS in the neoplastic epithelial cells and 42 (4 2.9%) in the non-neoplastic stromal cells. Statistical analysis revealed FA S expression and stage of the disease to be significantly correlated to rec urrence and survival rates only in the malignant common epithelial tumors. Moreover, multivariate analysis showed FAS expression (p=0.05) and tumor st age (p=0.03) to be independent prognostic predictors. FAS is a reliable pre dictor of recurrence and disease-free survival in common epithelial ovarian tumors along with neoplastic stage. Clinical data, other histologic subtyp es and grading were not statistically significant.