Reduced -Catenin Expression and Poor Survival in Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Results: Reduced expression of -catenin correlated with poor tumor differentiation of OSCC (P=.04). Patients with reduced -catenin expression in the primary tumor had significantly more frequent lymph node metastasis than did patients with normal -catenin expression (P= .03). Reduced expression of -catenin (P=.004) but not of catenin (P=.25) or -catenin (P=.48) correlated with poor clinical outcome. Reduced -catenin expression predicted poor disease-specific survival also in the 92 patients with T1 or T2 tumors (P= .02). In multivariate analysis, advanced T category (P= .04), neck lymph node metastases (P= .01), and reduced -catenin expression (P= .05) were independently related to poor survival.