title: Is the presence of distant metastasis associated with c-myc amplification in gastric cancer?
abstract: The expression of the c-myc oncogenes has already been reported in human gastric carcinoma. Overexpression can be the consequence of oncogene amplification and often correlates with different prognostic factors. Authors investigated the value of c-myc oncogene amplification in 23 patients (9 male, 14 female, aged 28-85 yrs) with gastric cancer and its correlation to the following clinical and histopathological parameters: grade, TNM stage, Lauren's type, localisation and severity of disease. DNA was isolated from formalin-fixed, paraffin embedded tissue for quantitative dot-blot hybridisation. Amplified c-myc was found in 6 out of 23 cases. Its values ranged from 2.12 up to 18.2 (average 9.1). Significant association was found between the presence of c-myc amplification and distant metastasis (corr. coeff.: 0.5623, p < 0.01). High scores of the other parameters also correlated with c-myc, albeit not significantly. The result of cluster analysis, based on the similarity of the parameter values for the individual patients proved that the age was the decisive factor in creating two groups. The distribution of patients into these groups did not seem to coincide with the presence of c-myc amplification or distant metastasis, inspite of the proved correlation between them.
authors.affiliation: 1st Department of Surgery, University Medical School of Debrecen, Hungary.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hajdú
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Kozma
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Kiss
authors.forename: Z
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Szentkereszty
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Szakáll
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Ember
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002277:Carcinoma / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics / Q000473:pathology / Q000556:secondary*; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D004273:DNA, Neoplasm / Q000032:analysis / Q000235:genetics; D005260:Female; D005404:Fixatives; D005557:Formaldehyde; D005784:Gene Amplification; D015972:Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic; D016259:Genes, myc / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D015151:Immunoblotting; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D009693:Nucleic Acid Hybridization; D016612:Paraffin Embedding; D011379:Prognosis; D013274:Stomach Neoplasms / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics* / Q000473:pathology
chemical_list: D004273:DNA, Neoplasm; D005404:Fixatives; D005557:Formaldehyde