5-Year Survival in Gastric Adenocarcinoma with Epithelial and Stromal Versican Expression.

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE: Gastric cancer is the second most frequent cause of cancer death worldwide, despite dif- ferences in incidence around the world. The majority of gastric cancer cases concern gastric adenocarcinoma, which has a fairly high 5-year survival rate when coupled with early-stage diagnosis. Versican, a member of the aggregating chondroitin sulfate proteoglycans family, is accumulated predominantly in the tumor stroma. The aim of our study was to investigate versican expression in gastric adenocarcinoma.

METHODS

In this study we investigated 80 patients with gastric adenocarcinoma who underwent gastrectomy. Each sample was obtained from paraffin-embedded resected specimens of the stomach after histopathological diagnosis. Patient follow-up was performed every 3 months after the beginning of data collection. Survival analysis was calcu- lated using the Kaplan-Meier method for univariate analysis.

RESULTS

Out of 80 patients with gastric adenocarcinoma, 76 cases (76.3%males and 23.7% females) completed the follow-up period. Positive versican expression in tumor epithelial and stromal cells was found in 39.5% and 22.4% of tumors, respectively. Shorter survival was observed among patients whose gastric adenocarcinoma expressed epithelial or stromal versican.

CONCLUSION

In summary, the present study suggests that versican is likely a prognostic biomarker that predicts a poor outcome in patients with gastric adenocarcinoma. Comprehensive studies with larger sample sizes are needed.