Relationship between lymph node metastasis and E-cadherin expression in submucosal invasive gastric carcinomas with gastric-phenotype.
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.
Aoki
Rika
R
Department of Gastroenterology, Kagawa Prefectural Cancer Detection Center, Kagawa, Japan.
Yasuda
Mitsugi
M
Torisu
Ryusuke
R
Nakamoto
Jiro
J
Yamamoto
Yosuke
Y
Ito
Susumu
S
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*
D015820:Cadherins