Anti-tumor efficacy of fulvestrant in estrogen receptor positive gastric cancer

To investigate the prognostic role of the estrogen receptor (ER) in gastric cancer (GC) patients, tumor tissues from 932 patients with advanced GC were assessed for ER expression using immunohistochemistry, and their clinicopathologic features were evaluated. Forty patients (4.3%) had ER expression and they were more frequently associated with diffuse type gastric cancer and shorter disease free survival. Furthermore, we carried out in vitro analysis to evaluate the effect of ER modulation on the proliferation of GC cell lines. Estradiol enhanced proliferation of ER positive GC cells while it did not show any effect on ER negative GC cells. When ER was inhibited by fulvestrant and ER siRNA, estradiol-induced proliferation of ER positive GC cell was suppressed. Paclitaxel showed synergistic anti-proliferative impacts with fulvestrant. Suppressing ER by fulvestrant, paclitaxel and ER siRNA showed increased expression of E-cadherin, which is a crucial factor in diffuse-type carcinogenesis.