Significance of estrogen receptors and cathepsin D tissue detection in gastric adenocarcinoma

✍ Scribed by George E. Theodoropoulos; Dimitris Panoussopoulos; Basil Ch. Golematis; Andreas Ch. Lazaris; Panagiotis Davaris

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1995
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 866 KB
• Volume: 58
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0022-4790
• DOI: 10.1002/jso.2930580308

✦ Synopsis

Estrogen receptors (ERs) have recently been reported to be present in carcinomas of stomach, an organ that has so far been considered as nontarget for sex hormones. Cathepsin D is an estrogen-regulated lysosomal protease that has been overexpressed in breast cancer. ER and cathepsin D immunohistochemical expression were studied in this research in order to estimate their association to known histopathological and clinical parameters and their possible prognostic significance as well.

Sixty-two patients with gastric adenocarcinomas were included in this study. The cancers were studied immunohistochemically concerning ER positivity in tumor cell nuclei and cathepsin D cytoplasmic expression.

Nuclear ER staining was detected in tumor cells of 25% of male and 27% of female patients. ER positivity was demonstrated mainly in the well and moderately differentiated carcinomas; 87.5% of ER( +) tumors were also characterized as cathepsin D positive and a significant correlation between ER and cathepsin D positive expression was demonstrated (P < 0.05). Cytoplasmic cathepsin D expression was observed in carcinomatous cells of 70.9% of gastric tumors. Early tumor stage and good differentiation were significantly associated with increased cathepsin D expression (P < 0.05, P < 0.001). Histologic type, degree of differentiation and tumor stage were significantly correlated to survival (P < 0.05, P < 0.001 and P < 0.001). The patients who were cathepsin D(+) had a significant prognostic advantage over the cathepsin D( -) patients (P < 0.001).

The presence of ER and estrogen-regulated cathepsin D indicates the involvement of sex hormonal factors in these tumors and cathepsin D positive expression in tumor cells seems to be related to better prognosis. Their biological, clinical, and prognostic roles remain to be further elucidated.