Abstract
The prognosis of gastric and oesophageal adenocarcinoma remains generally poor. However, mounting evidence suggests a positive role of human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER-2) expression in the prognosis of patients with these cancers. In this work, the patterns of HER-2 protein expression were determined in patients with gastric or oesophageal adenocarcinoma. Retrospectively, we reviewed records of gastric and oesophageal biopsies received from 2008 to 2012 and their corresponding archived formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue blocks selected for immunohistochemical analysis. The prevalence of gastric and oesophageal adenocarcinomas and their association with HER-2 protein overexpression were evaluated. Gastric adenocarcinoma made up 18.79% of the gastric biopsies reviewed, and majority of these cancers occurred in males. Regarding the tumour type, HER-2 overexpression was common in the intestinal subtype compared to the diffuse type. Although squamous cell carcinoma was observed to be the commonest (31%) tumour type in the oesophagus compared to adenocarcinoma (8.79%), HER-2 was overexpressed in 42.9% of oesophageal adenocarcinomas, like gastric adenocarcinoma (41.4%). There is a high prevalence of gastric and oesophageal adenocarcinoma, with significant overexpression of HER-2 in these tumours, a window of hope for the management of patients with these cancers.
Highlights
Gastroesophageal cancer is a major health problem worldwide and is among the leading causes of cancer deaths globally [1]
Over the 5-year period, 974 primary gastric biopsies with patients’ biographical records such as age and gender were retrieved from the histopathology log books. 183 (18.79%) of these gastric biopsies were diagnosed as adenocarcinoma, 99 of which had sufficient material to allow objective further analysis. 22.2% out of the 99 were subclassified as diffuse type while the remaining 77.8% (77 samples) were subclassified as intestinal type
The demographic characteristics of the 99 gastric adenocarcinoma subjects are shown in Table 1. 41 of these subjects overexpressed the biomarker, human epidermal growth factor receptor2 (HER-2)
Summary
Gastroesophageal cancer is a major health problem worldwide and is among the leading causes of cancer deaths globally [1]. Colon, prostate, and lung cancers are more commonly diagnosed cancers, cancers involving the oesophagus and stomach contribute significantly to cancer mortality [1, 2]. It appears that a small fraction of gastric and oesophageal cancer patients respond to the current management modalities such as surgery, chemotherapy, or radiotherapy. This suggests the need to explore other possible and effective approaches to managing these cancer patients [3, 4].
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