Background: Reliable method to predict lymph node metastasis is not yet available. In the present study, therefore, we examined LI-cadherin expression in human gastric cancer and attempted to find its relationship with clinicopathologic data, especially with lymph node metastasis. We also analyzed the expression in preoperative biopsy specimen to uncover its possibility of prognostication for lymph node metastasis.
Methods: The paired preoperative endoscopic biopsy and postoperative resected specimens from 208 patients who had surgically been treated for gastric cancer were retrospectively analyzed immunohistochemically for expression of LI-cadherin.
Results: There were 47 (22.6%) and 161 (77.4%) tumors which had positive and negative LI-cadherin expression, respectively. LI-cadherin expression was significantly correlated with tumor histology and lymph node metastasis: Furthermore, reduced expression of LI-cadherin was closely associated with tumor progression and lymph node metastasis in human gastric carcinoma. LI-cadherin expressions in both resected tumor and preoperative endoscopic tissues were found to be independent factors associated with lymph node metastasis.
Conclusions: There is a close association between reduced expression of LI-cadherin and lymph node metastasis in human gastric cancer. Immunohistochemical study of LI-cadherin is relatively simple compared to sentinel node navigation surgery, and it could be a practical prediction method for lymph node metastasis in patients with this malignancy.