HER-2 Evaluation in a Specific Gastric Cancer Population with the Highest Rate of Mortality in Spain

Abstract EN

Gastric cancer (GC) still represents the second cause of cancer-related death worldwide.

Radical resection is the mainstay of early stages treatment with little impact on overall survival (OS) in the advanced ones.

HER-2 is the most relevant biological factor involved.

Purpose.

This study aims to show the relationship between HER-2 positivity and survival in patients with completely resected GC.

Methods.

Retrospective study of GC patients diagnosed in 2003–2005 at our institution.

Surgical specimens underwent immunohistochemistry (IHC), and in cases +/++/+++ samples underwent also fluorescence in situ hybridisation (FISH) analyses of HER-2 and graduated according to experts' consensus.

Results.

120 cases included.

Overall expression detected in 7.5%.

Correlation between HER-2 positive and female sex, advanced stages or histological grades, or intestinal type was detected.

Early recurrences higher in HER-2 positive (66.6% versus 35.4%, P=0.048).

The median DFS for c-erbB-2 positive was 15 months (range 2–67 months), and OS was 25 months (range 10–67 months).

In the case of patients with c-erbB-2, negative median DFS was 27 months (range 5–67 months) and OS for this sample is 47 months (range 29–67 months).

Conclusions.

These results emphasize the relevance of HER-2 positivity in GC as independent prognostic factor and support its current analyses in daily practice.