It is still unclear how the abnormal hTERT expression is involved in the process of ovarian carcinogenesis. A recent report demonstrated that the introduction of c-erbB-2 could efficiently induce tumorigenicity of cells with the transfection of SV40 large T antigen and hTERT. It is designed to find correlation between overexpression of hTERT and c-erbB-2 in ovarian carcinogenesis.

Using immunohistochemistry, we tested whether overexpression of hTERT and c-erbB-2 were associated in ovarian cancer. Immunohistochemical staining of hTERT and c-erbB-2 was done in 63 cases of ovarian cancer. Overexpression of hTERT and c-erbB-2 were correlated to clinicopathological variables.

Overexpression of hTERT was found in 7 (11.1%) of cases, whereas overexpression of c-erbB2 was founded in 3 (4.8%) of cases. It was found that overexpression of hTERT and c-erbB-2 were significantly correlated (p=0.03). Neither overexpression of hTERT nor that of c-erbB-2 was associated with any of clinicopathological variables, such as stage, grade, and histology.

Although the significant correlation between hTERT and c-erbB-2 was found, the low frequency of overexpression of hTERT and c-erbB-2 suggests that cooperation of hTERT and c-erbB-2 may be minor mechanism of ovarian carcinogenesis.