Investigation of human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 expression and its correlation with age, gender, disease stage and degree of tumor differentiation of gastric cancer patients

Abstract

We performed a comparative observational study to evaluate HER2 protein expression in gastric cancer patients, and explored its correlations with clinicopathological characteristics. HER2 protein expression were assessed in formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded stomach tissue by immunohistochemistry. Patient information was collected, and associations between clinicopathological factors and HER2 positivity (IHC score 3+ or 2 +) and HER2 negative expression (IHC score 1+or 0) were examined. A total of 109 patients with stomach cancer were included in the study. The level of positivity of Her2 expression, according to the recommendations of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, in 57 cases (52.3%) showed “no membrane reactivity, in 19 (17.4%) “+” weak membrane reactivity, in 21 (19.3%) “++” cases the reaction was “moderate or lateral membrane and only in 12 cases (11.0%) expression was “+++”, which means “complete basolateral and correlated with various clinical and pathological parameters in patients with gastric cancer: older age, male gender, low-grade tumor. However, we did not find any significant correlation between overexpression of HER2 and tumor localization, histopathological differentiation of the tumor, as well as with the stage of the disease according to TNM.