Relation between transforming growth factor-β1 expression, its receptor and clinicopathological factors and survival in HER2-negative gastric cancers.

Background: Gastric cancer is still the most prevalent neoplasia in many countries. Therefore, besides the clinicopathological factors known to be prognostic markers, new independent parameters are being investigated. This study was to investigate the expression of transforming growth factor - β1 (TGF-β1) and transforming growth factor - β1 receptor II (TGF-β1RII) in HER2/neu negative gastric carcinomas and to explore the correlations, the clinicopathological characteristics and prognosis of gastric carcinoma.

Patients And Methods: Surgical specimens from 42 patients with gastric cancer were examined for the presence of HER2/neu, TGF-β1 and TGF-β1RII by immunohistochemistry. The correlation between expression of the proteins and patient clinicopathological parameters was evaluated and the prognostic significance of TGF-β1 and of receptor expression was assessed.

Results: All specimens demonstrated HER2/neu-negative status. TGF-β1 analyses exhibited predominantly cytoplasmic and membranous immunostaining. We found that 80% of intestinal gastric cancer specimens have TGF-β1 expression, while in the diffuse type they are 43%. Also the tumors with low and moderate differentiation were positive for TGF-βRII (p = 0.041). Finally we found that median survival period of the patients was 37.03 months and the patients with TGF-β1 expression had worse prognosis after surgical therapy compared to those without expression of TGF-β1 (p = 0.034).

Conclusions: We have shown that TGF-β1 expression in gastric tumor tissue with HER2/neu-negative status is of prognostic relevance in gastric cancer. The data for TGF-β1 and TGF-βRII expression showed association with clinicopathological parameters, and more precisely with the differentiation and histology type and TGF-β1-positive patient had a shorter overall survival compared with TGF-β1-negative patients.