Purpose: Fascin taken countless attention between cytoskeletal proteins; this because it is not normally present in epithelial tissues, and it's role in epithelial to mesenchymal transition leads to motility and invasion of cancer cells. The purpose of this work was to estimate the expression of the cytoskeleton-associated protein fascin as a prognostic indicator of invasiveness in salivary gland neoplasms and also, to relate its expression with the biological behavior of the salivary gland neoplasms by mean of the immunohistochemical technique. Material and method: 50 cases of salivary gland tissues were collected as paraffin embedded blocks: 20 benign cases (10 pleomorphic adenoma and 10 Warthin's tumors) and 25 malignant cases (15 cylindroma in addition to 10 mucoepidermoid carcinomas). Additionally, 5 normal salivary gland tissues. An immunohistochemical investigation using fascin antibody was done for all specimens. Results: The mean area percent of immunoexpression was greatest in malignant variants of salivary gland tumors, followed by benign variants of salivary gland tumors and the least value recorded in normal salivary gland tissue. Conclusion: According to the current study, fascin participates in the development of salivary gland tumors and positively related to the most aggressive patterns of malignant neoplasms.
Paper extracted From Master thesis entitled “Evaluation of Fascin Expression in selected salivary gland tumors (immunohistochemical study).