The impact of neoadjuvant chemotherapy on lymph node micrometastasis and dendritic cells in patients with stage III gastric carcinoma

Abstract

Objective To evaluate the effect of neoadjuvant chemotherapy on lymph node micrometastasis and DC cell number in stage Ⅲ gastric cancer patients.Methods Lymph node micrometastases in pathologically negative lymph nodes from 76 stage Ⅲ gastric cancer patients [56 cases with neoadjavant chemotherapy (NCT) and 20 cases without],were assessed by cytokeratin-20 antibody.Dendritic cells (DC) in HE positive lymph nodes,HE negatives near tumor foci and HE negatives far foci were assessed by CD83 antibody respectively.Patients were divided into four groups:group 0 (20 cases without NCT),group 2 (two courses of NCT in 29 patients),group 3 (three courses of NCT in 16 patients),group 4 (four courses of NCT in 11 patients).Results In NCT group there were two patients with micrometastases (2/56).All the patients were with micrometastases in control group (20/20).Difference was statistically significant (P =0.000).In HE-positive lymph node group:the number of CD83-positive DC in 2 times group,3 times group,and 4 times group when compared with no chemotherapy group were statistically significant (P20 =0.001,P30 =0.000,P40 =0.000).In HE-negative lymph node near foci group:the number of CD83-positive DC in 3 times group,and 4 times group compared with 0 group were statistically significant increased (P30 =0.001,P40 =0.001).In HE-negative lymph node far foci group:the number of 4 times group was significantly higher than 0,2 and 3 group (P40 =0.000,P42 =0.000,P43 =0.001).Conclusions Neoadjuvant chemotherapy is effective in the prevention of lymph node micrometastases in stage Ⅲ gastric carcinoma and it increases the number of mature dendritic cells in lymph nodes. Key words: Stomach neoplasm; Neoplasm metastasis; Chemotherapy, adjuvant; Dendritic cells