gallbladder adenocarcinoma, potential target for anti-her-2 therapy

Her-2 (erbb-2) is an oncogene frequently overexpressed in breast and gastric adenocarcinomas, and anti-her-2 targeted therapy can be given to such patients. her-2 overexpression and role of anti-her-2 targeted therapy in cases of gallbladder adenocarcinomas (gbc) are still debatable. scoring protocols for her-2 expression in breast and gastric carcinomas are standardized, however, not for carcinomas arising in other body organs like the gallbladder. this study is conducted to evaluate the expression of her-2 in patients with gbc, which may benefit from targeted therapy. it is a cross-sectional study conducted on patients with gbc (n=63; 53 women and ten men). an automated immunohistochemical technique was used with an anti-erbb2 antibody. scoring was conducted according to the cap (college of american pathologists) criteria for breast cancer. positive (3+) her-2 staining was observed in 8/63 (12.7%). nine cases (14.3%) showed equivocal staining (2+) pattern. all of the tumors showing her-2 overexpression were moderately differentiated. this study indicates that a significant number of gbc cases show her-2 overexpression. this subgroup may benefit from inhibitors of the her-2 pathway. standardization of scoring protocol for her-2 expression in gbc is needed to better evaluate the predictive potential of her-2 for the treatment of these tumors.