Overexpression of her-2 associated with the progression of esophageal cancer patients.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: The aim of this study was to test the expression level of her-2 in the tissue of esophageal cancer, and the relationship with the clinicopathologic characteristics of the patients with esophageal cancer, and the influence to the prognosis.

METHODOLOGY

We assessed her-2 in esophageal cancer tissues obtained from 72 patients' immunohistochemistry. The data were analyzed by SPSS software with chi2 test, Kaplan-Meier survival curves, Log-Rank test and Cox regression analysis. Data was expressed as mean +/- SD. A two-tailed p value of 0.05 was considered significant.

RESULTS

Twenty (27.8%) were found to have her-2 overexpression in esophageal cancer tissues, while normal esophageal tissues were negative. The expression of her-2 protein in esophageal cancer tissues is higher than those in adjacent normal esophageal tissues. The expression of her-2 is closely related to differentiation degree, infiltration depth, lymph nodes' metastasis and pTNM stage of the esophageal cancer. The 5-year survival rate of patients with her-2 overexpression is significantly lower than the patients with non-overexpression (5.0% vs. 36.5%, log-rank test, chi2 = 31.936, p = 0.000). Besides the influence of differentiation degree, infiltration depth, lymph node metastasis and pTNM stage to the prognosis, the level of her-2 expression is also an independent prognostic factor in esophageal cancer patients.

CONCLUSIONS

Her-2 might become a potential molecular marker of diagnosis and new targets of clinical treatment of esophageal cancer.