Study of c-erbB-2 protein and epidermal growth factor receptor expression and DNA ploidy pattern in colorectal carcinoma.

Correlation of c-erbB-2 protein (n = 44), epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) (n = 41) expression, and DNA ploidy pattern (n = 42) with clinical outcomes of human colorectal cancers was studied. Using monoclonal antibodies against c-erbB-2 protein and EGFR, an immunohistochemical study of the expression of c-erbB-2 protein and EGFR in frozen tissue sections from the lesion was performed. There was no significant correlation between the expression of c-erbB-2 protein and clinicopathological findings such as, tumor size, histological type, depth of invasion, lymph node metastasis, lymphatic vessel invasion, or venous invasion. However, the incidence of c-erbB-2 protein expression in Dukes D was significantly higher (9/10, 90%) than that in Dukes A to C (16/34, 47.1%). Similar tendency was also observed in the expression of EGFR. Aneuploid case was observed in 12 of observed 25 (48%) cases without lymph node metastasis, while it was observed in 16 of 17 cases (94.1%) with lymph node metastasis and there was significant association between DNA ploidy pattern and lymph node metastasis (P < 0.01) and most of the cases (17/20, 85%) were aneuploidy in Dukes C and D. The results above suggest that the expression of c-erbB-2 protein or EGFR was associated with distant metastasis, while on the other hand DNA ploidy pattern was correlated with lymph node metastasis.