her-2/neu gene overexpression in resectable gastric cancer and its relationship with histopathologic subtype, grade, and stage

objective her-2/neu gene is overexpressed in diverse human cancers and studies suggest a role of its product – p185 protein – in tumor progression by specifically promoting the invasive capacity of tumor cells. our aim was to evaluate her-2/neu content in resectable gastric cancer in this geographical region and assess the relationship between p185 expression and clinicopathologic tumor parameters. materials and methods this was a retrospective analysis of 100 specimens from 100 patients with resectable gastric carcinoma. indirect immunostaining was used to evaluate the expression of this receptor in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue samples. results her-2/neu overexpression was present in 26 (26%) of 100 gastric carcinomas. this was significantly more common in the intestinal type of gastric cancer (33%) compared to diffuse (5%) or the mixed type (0%). her-2/neu overexpression was also more common in well-differentiated gastric cancer versus other grades as. however, it was not associated with gender, age at diagnosis or clinical stage. conclusion her-2/neu amplification is common in the intestinal and well-differentiated gastric carcinomas. there is no correlation between her-2/neu expression and tumor stage. the relatively high percentage of her-2/neu positive tumors may provide a useful target for immunotherapy of these cancers.