HER-2 evaluation in a specific gastric cancer population with the highest rate of mortality in Spain

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. copyright © 2011 e. u. cidon et al.