title: Overexpression of HER-2/neu in patients with prostatic adenocarcinoma.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Prostatic adenocarcinoma is one of the main causes of cancer death, and its timely diagnosis and preventing its progression dramatically helps improve life indexes. Given the high disease recurrence rate, today, research is more inclined toward exploring causes of recurrence and development, and innovation of modern treatment methods. Several studies have explored over-expression of human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER-2/neu) in prostatic cancer so far, with different results. Thus, it was decided to investigate HER-2/neu overexpression in patients with prostatic adenocarcinoma in Iran.
  
  
  METHODS
  A sample size of 40 patients with prostate cancer entered the study, using a cross-sectional, non-randomized sampling method. Parameters studied included patient age at surgery, Gleason score, serum prostatic specific antigen (PSA) before surgery, and positive sample rate after immunohistochemical staining to investigate HER-2/neu overexpression.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In terms of HER-2/neu receptor staining rate, of 40 slides, 16 (40%) scored 0, 13 (32.5%) 1+, 7 (17.5%) 2+, and 4 (10%) 3+. In total 27.5% of slides showed HER-2/neu overexpression. In terms of age, an inverse correlation was found (-0.181), but without significance (p=0.263). In terms of serum PSA, the correlation coefficient was 0.449 (p=0.004). With respect to Gleason score, the coefficient was 0.190 (p=0.240).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In this study, HER-2/neu overexpression occurred in 27.5% of prostate cancer cases, which is a relatively high figure, compared to similar studies elsewhere. While, we failed to reveal any relationship between HER-2/neu expression status with progression and prognosis of disease, it was demonstrated that the serum PSA level was significantly higher in cases with increased receptor expression.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Faculty of Cedicine, Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences, Yazd, Iran E-mail : taghipour@ssu.ac.ir.
authors.forename: Shokouh Taghipour
authors.initials: ST
authors.lastname: Zahir
authors.forename: Hamid Fallah
authors.initials: HF
authors.lastname: Tafti
authors.forename: Koorosh
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Rahmani
mesh_terms: D000230:Adenocarcinoma / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor / Q000378:metabolism*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D007124:Immunoenzyme Techniques; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D060787:Neoplasm Grading; D009364:Neoplasm Recurrence, Local / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D011379:Prognosis; D011471:Prostatic Neoplasms / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology; D018719:Erb-b2 Receptor Tyrosine Kinases / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; D018719:Erb-b2 Receptor Tyrosine Kinases; C508053:ERBB2 protein, human