Relevance of interleukin-6 with invasion and metastasis of endometrial cancer

Objective：To investigate the relevance of interleukin-6 (IL-6) with invasion and metastasis of endometrial carcinoma. Methods：Seventy-eight tumor specimens from patients with endometrial carcinoma who underwent surgical treatment from March 2014 to October 2016 were collected, meanwhile, 42 normal endometrial specimens from patients with benign uterine diseases and 26 atypical hyperplasia endometrial tissues were collected as control. The expression of IL-6 in different tissues was detected by immunohistochemical methods. Results：The expression of IL-6 in endometrial carcinoma was significantly higher than that in normal endometrium (P<0.01). The expression of IL-6 in cancer tissue was positively correlated with myometrial invasion and lymph node metastasis (Spearman rank correlation coefficient was 0.589 and 0.655, respectively, both P<0.05), while was not correlated with clinical parameters such as tumor grade. Conclusions：The high expression of IL-6 is correlated with invasion and metastasis of endometrial carcinoma. IL-6 may be used as a potential monitoring index and therapeutic target of endometrial carcinoma.