A total of 131 paraffin-embedded tissue samples were collected from cervical intraepithelial neoplasia and suspicious cervical cancer patients undergoing loop electrosurgical excision procedure (LEEP) for diagnostics or treatment. They included 39 patients with low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (LSIL), 49 patients with high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion(HSIL), 43 patients with invasive cervical cancer(ICC), and 38 patients with cervicitis were enrolled as control group. Immunohistochemistry [streptavidin-peroxidase (SP)] using a rabbit polyclonal antibody against human cornulin was applied in all samples. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used for the determination of cornulin mRNA expression in all 131 patients' cervical thinprep cytologic test samples prior to cervical LEEP procedure and control group's cervical thinprep cytologic test samples after histopathology diagnosis by colposcopy.

Immunohistochemistry showed that the expression levels of cornulin were significantly different with the other groups (P=0.000)except that between LSIL and control group(P=0.148). With the severity degree of cervical disease increasing, the expression of cornulin decreased, and it decreased significantly in ICC. The expression of cornulin mRNA was consistent with the results of cornulin expression level. If taking cornulin weakly positive(+)or negative (-)as the cut-off for screening cervical HSIL or higher, the sensitivity was 70.7%, and the specificity was 85.7%. And for screening cervial LSIL or higher, the sensitivity was 56.5%, and the specificity was 94.7%.

Cornulin might be one of the useful markers for cervical carcinogenesis.