Journal of Diagnostics Concepts & Practice ›› 2017, Vol. 16 ›› Issue (02): 166-170.doi: 10.16150/j.1671-2870.2017.02.009

• Original articles • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Relationship between HER2 expression and clinicopathological features in advanced gastric cancer

QIAO Changting, LI Lei, WU Anni, YUAN Fei   

  1. Department of Pathology, Ruijin Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200025, China.
  • Received:2016-12-27 Online:2017-04-25 Published:2017-04-25

Abstract: Objective: To investigate the expression of human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER2) in advanced gastric cancer and the correlation between HER2 expression and clinicopathological features. Methods: A total of 542 consecutive patients with gastric cancer from 2011 to 2015 were enrolled, and all the patients received resection of the tumor at Ruijin Hospital. HER2 expression in tumor tissue was detected by immunohistochemistry in accordance with the Hoffmann scoring system. Correlation between HER2 expression and clinicopathological features was statistically analyzed. Results: One hundred and forty-one cases (26%) were scored as strongly positive for HER2 membrane staining (3+). HER2 positivity was statistically associated with local invasion (P=0.002), lymph node metastasis (P< 0.001), and TNM staging (P=0.030), respectively. HER2 overexpression was more frequently detected in intestinal (30.5%) than that in diffuse (16.1%) type of tumor according to Lauren's classification. Similarly, HER2 overexpression was more frequently detected in well or moderate differentiated (43.0%) than in poor or undifferentiated (22.8%) tumor according to WHO classification. Conclusions: An accurate standardized scoring system for HER2 expression in gastric cancer patients is important for selecting patients for trastuzumab treatment. This study indicates that patients with intestinal type, well differen-tiated and late staging hare a high rate of HER2 expression, and they were the candidates for targeted therapy using trastuzumab.

Key words: Human epidermal growth factor receptor-2, Gastric cancer, Clinicopathological characteristics, Immunohistochemistry

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