The incidence of sarcomas constitutes approximately 1% in adults and up to 12% in children of all malignancies. Approximately 80% have soft tissue origins while the rest originate in the bone. Soft tissue sarcomas (STS) are buy VX-809 divided by the World Health Organization (WHO) into more than 50 sub-groups and types. The presence of

metastases during the initial diagnosis is uncommon. However, the potential for metastatic disease is elevated according to tumor grade, depth of penetration, and histology [20]. In a break-through laboratory study on animals based on STS models, the experimental drug, heparanase inhibitor SST0001,was administered by subcutaneous injections to tumors with increased heparanase expression, in conjunction with antiangiogenic agents (bevacizumab, sunitinib). The purpose of this treatment was to suppress heparanase activity, resulting in the suppression of growth factors such as VEGF, HGF, and PDGF. The results of this study were positive and complete remission was noted in some of the cases

[19]. The selleck primary goal of the current study was to examine the expression of heparanase in soft tissue sarcomas in adults according to common histological sub-types. The secondary goal was to examine the possibility that the over-expression of heparanase serves as a prognostic index in the development of STS metastases. Materials and methods Sample size Following approval of the study by the Rambam Health Care Campus Helsinki Committee, 101 biopsies from adult patients diagnosed with STS in the years 2001–2010 and under the care of the Division of Oncology at Rambam Health Care Campus were collected. A number of samples from common types of histology were randomly selected.

Data was Sulfite dehydrogenase collected from the clinical follow-up, including demographic and clinical characteristics, stage of disease (TNM) at the time of diagnosis, evidence of recurrence, appearance of outlying metastases, and patient survival. Patients were excluded if only partial data was available in the medical file, or if it was impossible to prepare enough slides from the pathological block. Biopsy samples were taken from a primary tumor or from metastases. In 10 cases, the biopsies were taken at different stages of the disease, from a primary tumor and from the metastatic lesion. Biopsies were subjected to immunostaining, applying an antibody (#733) raised against the N-terminal region of heparanase [21], essentially as described [22, 23]. Briefly, slides were deparaffinized, rehydrated, and subjected to antigen retrieval by boiling (20 min) in 10 mM citrate buffer, pH 6.0. Following washes with phosphate buffered saline (PBS), slides were incubated with 10% normal goat serum (NGS) in PBS for 60 min to block non-specific binding and incubated (20 h, 4°C) with antibody 733, diluted 1:100 in blocking solution. Slides were extensively washed with PBS containing 0.