2005 Articles

Re: Detection of Hypermethylated Genes in Women With and Without Cervical Neoplasia

Vundavalli, Murty V.; Narayan, Gopeshwar

Feng et al. (1) examined whether changes in DNA methylation of 20 genes, selected on the basis of their role in cervical cancer, could be used as markers of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) and invasive cervical cancer (ICC). The authors found varying frequencies of promoter hypermethylation in these 20 genes in 319 exfoliated cell samples and matched tissue biopsy specimens. For four of these genes (DAPK1, RARB, TWIST1, and CDH13), increasing frequency of hypermethylation was statistically significantly associated with increasing severity of disease. The estimated specificity of the three-gene panel (DAPK, RARB, and TWIST1) was 95%, which is higher than specificities reported for cytology and human papillomavirus (HPV) testing. Although the study was well designed and a molecular genetic test with high specificity such as this one is needed, some of the findings are inconsistent with previously reported results and the conclusions may therefore not be valid.