Expression of HER2 in Gastric Carcinoma

Introduction: Gastric cancer is the fourth commonest cancer worldwide. It is also recognized as the second commonest cause of cancer related death in the global perspective. Although the incidence of gastric cancer has gradually decreased over the last half of the century, it varies among the different part of the world and different ethnic group. Mortality from gastric cancer extremely high, and it is second only to lung cancer. Gastric cancer occurs more frequently in men than in women. Aim of the study: Aim of the study was to find out expression of HER2 in gastric carcinoma. Material & Methods: This cross sectional study was conducted in the Department of Surgical Oncology of National Institute of Cancer, Research and Hospital, Mohakhali, Dhaka. The study period was from March, 2014 to April, 2015. A total of 80 patients were included for the study. After receiving the gastrectomy specimen, it was fixed in 10% formaldehyde. Data were compiled and necessary statistical analysis were carried out using computer based software package for social science (SPSS 16.1). Ethical clearance was taken from the ethical committee of NICRH. Results: The highest patients were from 61-70 years age group and the lowest were from 71-80 years. The mean age of the patients was 59.71 (± 10.19) years. The female to male ratio in this study was 1: 2.48. 66 (82.5%) patients were presented with anemia which was followed by 39 (48.75%) cases with dehydration. Most of the tumors were located in the distal part of the stomach (11.67%). Regarding staging 79(12.65%) patients were in the advanced stage of the disease. The correlation between HER2 overexpression and TNM staging has been tabulated below where it is shown that only Nodal (N) staging has the significant correlation with the HER2 overexpression. Conclusion: It is already mentioned that, in early history of immunohistochemistry, HER2 overexpression in case of carcinoma stomach was highly varied in different studies (from 9-92%). But recently, it was found around 9-32%, in several studies all over the world. It is necessary to conduct further studies with larger samples and long term follow-up in order to draw definite conclusions regarding the role of HER2/neu over expression