“Endometrial cancer with regional lymph node metastasis has a high mortality rate. Lymph node metastasis is therefore a crucial factor in the prognosis and choice of treatment for patients with endometrial cancer. Based on the assumption that metastasis is mainly determined by properties of the primary tumor and its interaction with the surrounding structures we aim to explore the possibility of predicting the presence of metastasis based on the molecular features of the primary tumor.

A tissue cohort comprising of endometrial primary tumors with metastasis (n=41) and without lymph node metastasis (n=51) was analysed to identify proteins associated with regional lymph node metastasis. For this, two complementary methods MALDI Imaging and Label free quantitative proteomics were used. Though MALDI-IMS allows the analysis of hundreds of peptides and lipids simultaneously, MALDI is not considered quantitative. Therefore, quantitative proteomic profiling by label free analysis will be used in conjunction with MALDI-IMS to identify proteins and peptides that are differentially expressed in primary tumours and have been metastasized. Our preliminary data of tryptic peptide imaging on FFPE tissue micro arrays indicates the metastatic potential of the primary tumor. Using the label free quantitative approach, we have identified three proteins which are differentially expressed between primary tumors with and without lymph node metastasis. In conclusion, we expect that the results from this study will provide crucial new tools to assist in the diagnosis and prognosis of Endometrial cancer and would prevent overtreatment of patients, whose primary tumor does not have metastatic potential.”