Berchuck A, Kamel A, Whitaker R, Kerns B, Olt G, Kinney R, Soper J T, Dodge R, Clarke-Pearson D L, Marks P
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina 27710.
Cancer Res. 1990 Jul 1;50(13):4087-91.
Previous studies have suggested that overexpression of HER-2/neu oncogene occurs in 15-40% of breast cancers and that overexpression is associated with poor prognosis. In the present report, we have used an immunohistochemical technique involving a monoclonal antibody specifically reactive with the external domain of HER-2/neu to study expression of HER-2/neu in frozen sections of normal ovary and advanced epithelial ovarian cancer. The intensity of staining for HER-2neu was always moderate or less (0-2+) in normal ovarian epithelium. Among 73 ovarian cancers, 50 (68%) had staining similar to that for normal ovarian epithelium (0-2+) while 23 (32%) stained heavily (3+). Survival of the 23 patients with high HER-2/neu expression (median, 15.7 months) was significantly worse (P = 0.001) than that of the 50 patients (median, 32.8 months) with normal HER-2/neu expression. In addition, patients whose tumors had high HER-2/neu expression were significantly less likely to have a complete response to primary therapy (P less than 0.05) or have a negative second-look laparotomy when serum CA 125 levels were normal preoperatively (P less than 0.05). These findings suggest that HER-2/neu deserves further evaluation as a prognostic marker in epithelial ovarian cancer.
先前的研究表明，HER-2/neu癌基因的过表达在15%-40%的乳腺癌中出现，且这种过表达与预后不良相关。在本报告中，我们使用了一种免疫组织化学技术，该技术涉及一种与HER-2/neu胞外结构域特异性反应的单克隆抗体，以研究HER-2/neu在正常卵巢和晚期上皮性卵巢癌冰冻切片中的表达。HER-2neu的染色强度在正常卵巢上皮中始终为中度或更低（0-2+）。在73例卵巢癌中，50例（68%）的染色与正常卵巢上皮相似（0-2+），而23例（32%）染色较重（3+）。HER-2/neu高表达的23例患者的生存期（中位数为15.7个月）明显差于HER-2/neu表达正常的50例患者（中位数为32.8个月）（P = 0.001）。此外，肿瘤HER-2/neu高表达的患者对初始治疗完全缓解的可能性显著降低（P<0.05），或者在术前血清CA 125水平正常时二次剖腹探查结果为阴性的可能性也显著降低（P<0.05）。这些发现表明，HER-2/neu作为上皮性卵巢癌的预后标志物值得进一步评估。
