Clinical value of immunohistochemically detected lymphatic and vascular invasions in clinically staged endometrioid endometrial cancer

Background: A novel technique to differentiate lymphatic from vascular invasion and to assess the clinicopathological significance in patients with early endometrial cancer.Methods: Dual immunohistochemical techniques against pancytokeratin epithelial cellmarker (PCK), D6 lymphatic endothelial marker, and CD31 nonspecific endothelial marker were deployed for differentiation. Seventy-seven patients were included with a median follow-up of 161 months. Tumors with positive evidence of lymphovascular space invasion on PCK-CD31 immunohistochemistry and absence of lymphatic space invasion on PCKD6 were regarded as cases with vascular space invasion only.Results: Significant association between depth of myometrial invasion, recurrence rate, and hematoxylin and eosin that detected lymphovascular space invasion were noted (P