Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, Kanagawa Cancer Center, Yokohama, Japan.
Department of Surgery, Yokohama City University, Yokohama, Japan.
Anticancer Res. 2022 Aug;42(8):3873-3878. doi: 10.21873/anticanres.15880.
BACKGROUND/AIM: Epiregulin (EREG) is a ligand of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and promotes tumour progression mainly by stimulating the EGF pathway. We investigated the clinical significance of EREG mRNA expression in cancer tissues from patients with gastric cancer (GC) in pathological (p) Stage II/III who have undergone curative surgery.
Expression of EREG mRNA was measured in cancer tissues obtained from 253 patients with pStage II/III GC who underwent curative surgery. Patients were divided into groups based on high or low expression of EREG mRNA. We examined the relationship between EREG mRNA expression levels and clinicopathological features and survival.
Clinicopathological features did not vary between the high and low EREG mRNA expression groups. Overall survival was significantly lower in the high-expression group compared to that in the low-expression group (5-year survival probability: 55.0% vs. 73.0%; p=0.005). Multivariate analysis showed EREG mRNA expression to be an independent predictor of poor survival (hazard ratio=1.794; 95% confidence interval=1.186-2.712; p=0.006).
Expression of EREG mRNA in cancer tissue from patients with pStage II/III GC may be a useful prognostic marker after curative surgery.
背景/目的：表皮调节素（EREG）是表皮生长因子受体（EGFR）的配体，主要通过刺激 EGF 途径促进肿瘤进展。我们研究了接受根治性手术的病理分期（p）II/III 期胃癌患者肿瘤组织中 EREG mRNA 表达的临床意义。
对 253 例接受根治性手术的 p 期 II/III 期胃癌患者的肿瘤组织中 EREG mRNA 的表达进行了测量。根据 EREG mRNA 表达水平的高低将患者分为两组。我们检查了 EREG mRNA 表达水平与临床病理特征和生存之间的关系。
高、低 EREG mRNA 表达组的临床病理特征无差异。高表达组的总生存率明显低于低表达组（5 年生存率：55.0% vs. 73.0%；p=0.005）。多因素分析显示 EREG mRNA 表达是预后不良的独立预测因子（危险比=1.794；95%置信区间=1.186-2.712；p=0.006）。
p 期 II/III 期胃癌患者肿瘤组织中 EREG mRNA 的表达可能是根治性手术后有用的预后标志物。
