TWIST1 expression and clinical significance in type I endometrial cancer and premalignant lesions: A retrospective clinical study

The aim of this study was to assess the correlation of TWIST1 expression with clinical parameters and the prognosis of type I endometrial cancer (EC). This retrospective study enrolled 345 patients. Immunohistochemical staining was performed on 55 normal endometrium (NE) samples, 27 atypical hyperplasia (AH) samples, and 263 type I EC samples. The association between TWIST1 staining and clinical characteristics and survival was evaluated by univariate and multivariate analyses. We found significantly higher TWIST1 expression in patients with AHs and type I ECs than NEs, but there was no significant difference between TWIST1 expression in AHs and type I ECs. Aberrant TWIST1 expression was significantly associated with clinical parameters, indicating poor prognosis and shorter patient survival. Pearsons Chi-Squared test showed that high TWIST1 expression was significantly associated with a shorter disease-free survival and overall survival. More importantly, multivariate analysis showed that high TWIST1 expression, in addition to myometrial invasion, lymph vascular space invasion, and lymph node metastasis, was an independent predictor of worse DFS in patients with type I ECs. Our findings suggest that TWIST1 might be useful in diagnosing ECs and predicting prognosis in patients with AHs and type I ECs.