title: Relationship between lymph node metastasis and E-cadherin expression in submucosal invasive gastric carcinomas with gastric-phenotype.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Recent advances in immunohistochemical staining have led to the proposition of a classification of gastric carcinomas based on cellular phenotypes, and the degree of biological malignancy of gastric-phenotype carcinomas has attracted particular attention.
  
  
  METHODS
  One hundred and seven submucosal (SM) invasive carcinomas encountered in our center were examined for their histological type, cellular phenotype, and E-cadherin expression status to clarify their relationships with lymph node metastasis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Eleven (10.3%) of 107 SM gastric carcinomas were lymph node metastasis-positive. Gastric-phenotype carcinomas accounted for 20.6%, with a lymph node metastasis rate of 27.3% (6/22), which was significantly higher (p<0.05) than those of intestinal-phenotype carcinomas (5.9%) and mixed-phenotype carcinomas (2.9%). In terms of E-cadherin expression, only carcinomas with reduced E-cadherin expression showed lymph node metastasis at a rate significantly higher than that of carcinomas with normal E-cadherin expression (p<0.05). The lymph node metastasis rate (46.2%) of gastric-phenotype carcinomas with reduced E-cadherin expression was significantly higher than those of carcinomas of other phenotypes (p<0.05).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Since gastric-phenotype differentiated carcinomas with reduced E-cadherin expression have the potential for becoming undifferentiated, the risk of lymph node metastasis should be considered.
authors: Department of Gastroenterology, Kagawa Prefectural Cancer Detection Center, Kagawa, Japan.
authors: Rika
authors: R
authors: Aoki
authors: Mitsugi
authors: M
authors: Yasuda
authors: Ryusuke
authors: R
authors: Torisu
authors: Jiro
authors: J
authors: Nakamoto
authors: Yosuke
authors: Y
authors: Yamamoto
authors: Susumu
authors: S
authors: Ito
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D015820:Cadherins / Q000032:analysis*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008207:Lymphatic Metastasis; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009361:Neoplasm Invasiveness; D010641:Phenotype; D013274:Stomach Neoplasms / Q000737:chemistry / Q000473:pathology*
chemical_list: D015820:Cadherins