Utilization of microsatellite instability (MSI) as genomic markers in endometrial cancer: Scientific evidences

Endometrial Cancer is the more frequent tumor in Occidental ands, with 142,000 new cases for year and 42,000 deaths; this cancer typically trikes women between 55 and 65 years and it is on the fourth place in female tumors. Edogen predisposing conditions to endometrial cancer development are: late menopause, early menarche, and hyperestrogenism, while hormone replacement theraphy, obesity, alcoholm diabetes, diet rich of animal fats and chronic liver disease represent exogenous factors. This tumor can arise even as hereditary predisposition, as in Lynch Syndrome or HNPCC (Hereditary NonPolyposis Colorectal Cancer), since the genetic modifications induced by "mismatch repair" (MMR) genes lead to a tumoral development susceptibility, not only in colon. The phenotypical consequence of these genetic modifications is the microsatellite instability (MSI) and in loss of heterozygosity (LOH), whom create the RER (replication errors in repeats) positive phenotype, who express the incapability to repair short nucleotide insertions or deletions, generates by an uncorrected DNA replication; by these genetic modifications, new allelic variants arise in endometrial tissue, confirming te elevate degree of genetic disorder. Recent studies showed that the MSI and LOH in endomerial cells can be associated to the loss of cellular control expression and to degeneration of cellular growth phenomenon. It exist the possibility to utilize these new genetic markers in the endometrial mucosa, to study by genomic these tissue and to detect the possible neoplastic transformation.