Background & objective: The invasion depth and lymph node metastasis result from the polygenes and their protein expression in gastric carcinoma. The key of the basic and clinical research of the gastric carcinoma is to find out the related molecular biology marker. This study was designed to investigate the relationship between the expression of MUC1, CD44v6, nm23 in gastric carcinomas and regional lymph node tissues and invasion, metastasis, and prognosis of the tumor.
Methods: The expression of MUC1, CD44v6, and nm23 in 110 advanced gastric carcinomas and 613 regional lymph node specimens were examined by immunohistochemical technique. The results was judged by the criterion of the positive or the negative expression.
Results: (1) The expression of MUC1 (84.6%, 88.1%, 87.3%, 91.7%, 94.4%, and 95.5%, respectively) and CD44v6 (79.5%, 74.6%, 79.4%, 81.7%, 87.0%, and 87.9%, respectively) in gastric carcinoma tissues in the groups of low differentiated adenocarcinoma, infiltrated type, T3+T4, lymph node metastasis, stage III-IV, and survival < 5 years were significantly higher than those in the groups of high-middle differentiated adenocarcinoma, limited type, T1+T2, no lymph node metastasis, stage I-II, and survival >or= 5 years (P< 0.01 or P< 0.05); while the expression of nm23 was contrary (P< 0.01 or P< 0.05) except for the groups of differentiation and Borrmann type. (2) The expression of MUC1 and CD44v6 in the lymph node metastasis group of the gastric carcinoma (94.7% and 89.4%, respectively)were remarkably higher than those in the no lymph node metastasis group (19.6% and 19.6%, respectively) (P< 0.01); while the expression of nm23 was contrary (16.8% versus 74.9%, P< 0.01). (3) The 5-year survival rates of the patients in MUC1 and CD44v6 positive expression group (13.0% and 15.4%, respectively) in the regional lymph nodes of gastric carcinoma were significantly lower than those in the negative expression group (100% and 62.1%) (P< 0.01); while the 5-year survival rate of the patients in nm23 positive expression group was contrary (70.0% versus 4.0%, P< 0.01).
Conclusion: The high expression of MUC1, CD44v6 and low expression of nm23 were related to the invasion, metastasis, and prognosis of the gastric carcinoma. The detection of MUC1, CD44v6, and nm23 can be useful for the diagnosis and treatment of advanced gastric carcinoma.