Prognostic significance of p-STAT3 in patients with bulky cervical carcinoma undergoing neoadjuvant chemotherapy

Aim: To better predict treatment responses for managing bulky cervical carcinoma with neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC). Methods: The expression of p-STAT3 was analyzed by immunohistochemistry using paraffin-embedded pretreatment cervical biopsy tissues. The study included 29 patients with bulky IB to IIA cervical squamous cell carcinoma treated with NAC. Results: Twenty (69.0%) of 29 patients were scored as p-STAT3-positive. Pathological response to chemotherapy (complete response or residual tumor with less than 3 mm stromal invasion) was observed in eight patients (27.6%). The p-STAT3-positive patients had a longer disease-free survival compared to p-STAT3-negative patients (P = 0.03), though they had more frequent clinical nodal involvement (P = 0.046). Conclusion: Pretreatment assessment of p-STAT3 expression may provide additional information for the identification of patients with cervical cancer who have a favorable prognosis.