title: Human Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Expression in Colorectal Cancer and Its Relationship with Clinicopathological Characteristics.
abstract: BACKGROUND Some recent studies reported human epidermal growth factor receptor (HER-2/neu) as a marker that can be used in immunological studies of colorectal carcinoma for predicting the prognosis and the treatment. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the frequency of HER-2 expression in patients with colorectal cancer, and explore the relationship between clinicopathological prognostic factors and its expression based on immunohistochemical analysis. METHODS This study included 50 patients with a histologically proven diagnosis of colorectal carcinoma who received surgery at Imam Khomeini Hospital affiliated to Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences. First, HER-2/neu protein expressions were detected by immunohistochemistry and then the data extracted from recorded files. RESULTS The median age of the patients was 60.2±13.9 years (range: 25-93 years). There was no significant relationship between size of tumor, age, sex, lymph node metastases, distant metastasis, differentiation, and stage of the disease with positive expression of HER-2 in this study. CONCLUSION No significant relationship between expression of HER-2 and clinicopathological prognostic factors was found in our study. Further comprehensive and prospective trial with standard method to evaluate the role of HER-2 expression among patients with colorectal cancer is needed.
authors.affiliation: Gut and Liver Research Center & Department of Pathology, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Sari, Iran.
authors.forename: Zhila
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Torabizadeh
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Mazandaran University of Medical Science, Sari, Iran.
authors.forename: Anahita
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Nosrati
authors.affiliation: Resident of Pathology, Mazandaran University of Medical Science, Sari, Iran.
authors.forename: Shadi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tahvildari
keywords: Colorectal cancer; Her-2/neu; Immunohistochemistry; Northern of Iran