Glycodelin expression in normal, hyperplasic and malign endometrial tissues

Endometrial cancer is the most common gynecological cancer among women in Turkey as well as all over the world. According to National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results; five most common cancers in women are; breast, lung, colon, endometrium and ovary. According to the Ministry of Health 1999 data, 25,942 cancers were reported in Turkey. In the data of the same year, the four most common cancers in women are breast, stomach, skin, colon cancer, the first two most common gynecological cancers are cervix and endometrium. Endometrial hyperplasia is considered aa a precursor lesion to endometrial carcinoma. are being made. It is manifested by varying degrees of morphological and biological disorders and there is a spectrum of glandular and stromal proliferation ,with or without cytological atypia. The presence and severity of cytological atypia are considered to predictive of progression to endometrial carcinoma. Glycodelin, also known as placental protein 14 (PP14) is a member of the lipocalin group with a molecular weight of 28 kD. It has contraceptive and immunosuppressive activities. Besides normal tissues of Müllerian origin, it is also secreted from gynecological and other organ tumors. Glycodelin is released from most gynecological organs and tissues. In recent years, it has attracted a lot of attention especially in the field of gynecology and has been the subject of researchs. Horowitz et al. showed that elevated serum glycodelin levels in gynecological malignancies. Shabani et al, showed that elevated expression in breast cancers and Bischof et al showed in ovarian neoplasms. In our study,we aimed to determine the Glycodelin levels in normal endometrial tissue, endometrial hyperplasia and endometrial malignancy.