C-erb-B2 (Her2/neu) Expression Rate And its Association with Clinicopathologic Parameters in Gastric Cancer

We aimed to investigate the frequency of c-erb-B2 expression rate and its association with clinicopathological parameters in our gastric carcinoma series to make a contribution to emerging data on this oncogene. One hundred thirty-nine gastric adenocarcinoma patients underwent total gastrectomy between years 2006 and 2011 were selected to the study. C-erb-B2 expressions were determined by using immunohistochemical and/or chromogenic in situ hybridisation methods in tumor tissues. A total of 16 (11.5%) gastric adenocarcinoma cases were found positive for c-erb-B2 expression. Out of 16 positive cases, 13 had intestinal type adenocarcinomas. C-erb-B2 overexpression was significantly associated with histologic subtype (p= 0.001), and histologic tumor grade (p= 0.001). The frequency of overexpression in intestinal subtype (21.7%) was comparable with the known rates of overexpression in breast cancer. This results indicate that C-erb-B2 expression may identify a subgroup in gastric carcinoma cases which may benefit from targeted treatment modalities among Turkish population.