Iraqi Postgraduate Medical Journal

Abstract

ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND :
Gastric cancer is the the fourth most common cancer and the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths. Gastric cancer is a major cause of cancer morbidity and mortality worldwide.
OBJECTIVE:
To estimate the immunohistochemical expression of epidermal growth factor receptor(EGFR) in the gastric cancer in relation to other parameters like grade and stage.
METHODS:
Formaline fixed ,paraffin-embedded blocks from 51 patients (29 male and 22 female) with gastric carcinoma were included in this study. Ten biopsies of normal gastric tissue were selected as a control group. Envision (DAKO) technique was applied to study the immunohistochem- ical expression of EGFR in paraffin embedded sections of gastric cancer.
RESULTS:
Positive immunohistochemical expression of EGFR was seen in 41.2% of cases as both membranous and cytoplasmic brown staining while there was negative staining in the normal control group (p<0.05). EGFR immunoexpression was correlated with the histological type( more in the intestinal variant than the diffuse type) (p<0.0.5).
CONCLUSION:
These findings provides further evidence for the role of EGFR in the tumorgenensis of gastric cancer. However, EGFR could not be well correlated with stage of tumor and hence may be poor prognostic parameters of the state of malignancy.