Her-2neu Expression in Endometrial Carcinoma Patients- A Preliminary Study from Western India

Background: her-2neu is a gene from the epidermal growth factor receptor family. it regulates cell growth. her-2neu overexpression or amplification is more common in type 2 endometrial cancer than in type 1. overexpression of herr-2neu has been associated with poor prognosis. this study aimed to evaluate her-2neu expression in endometrial carcinoma patients. method: 50 endometrial carcinoma patients were enrolled in this study. her-2neu expression was studied using the immunohistochemistry method on formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue and correlated with clinical and pathological parameters as well as disease status. result: her-2neu positivity was observed in 10% (5/50) of the cases. her-2neu expression was more frequent in postmenopausal women (10%). her-2neu expression was more common in patients with lymphovascular invasion (18%) and lymph node positivity (20%). a higher frequency of her-2neu expression was observed in tumors of the following types: er-negative (22%), p53 mutant (17%), wt1-positive (25%), and vimentin- positive (12%). to disease-free survival, her-2neu-positive tumors had a higher rate of relapse. conclusion: in the present study, higher expression of her-2neu was observed in patients with lymphovascular invasion, lymph node positivity, er-negative tumors, p53-mutant tumors, wt1-positive tumors, and those with reduced disease-free survival (dfs). these findings suggest that her-2neu is associated with disease spread, aggressiveness, proliferation in a hormone-independent manner, its role in the emt (epithelial-mesenchymal transition) process, and negative prognostic implications.