Objective and background: Her-2/neu tyrosine kinase has been implicated in the development and progression of several human cancers and is target for therapeutic intervention. Smaller studies suggest that Her-2/neu may be involved in the tumerogenesis of endometrial adenocarcinoma. The aim of this study was to evaluate Her-2/neu expression in endometrial carcinoma (EC) and its correlation with clinicopathological features in order to define the potential prognostic value of Her-2/neu overexpression in EC.
Patients and methods: Nineteen patients with stage I-IV EC were included in this study. Demographic, clinical and pathologic information was obtained and recorded. Her-2/neu expression was evaluated by immunohistochemistry (IHC) on paraffin embedded tissue sections with Her-2/neu antibody. Overexpression was defined as complete membrane staining in greater than 10% of cells.
Results: The positive rate of Her-2/neu in EC was 42.1%. Her-2/neu was associated with surgical stage (p<0.01), lymph node involvement (p<0.05), lymph vascular space invasion (p <0.05) and depth of myometrial invasion (p <0.01) but not associated with histological grade or the age of the patients (p >0.05).
Conclusion: Our study provides evidence of Her-2/neu overexpression in a considerable proportion of the patients with uterine adenocarcinoma, thus suggesting the opportunity for the possible use of anti-Her-2/neu therapy in this malignancy by selective inhibition of Her-2/neu. The use of Herceptin, a monoclonal antibody directed against Her-2/neu, for therapy of patients harboring Her-2/neu positive EC may be beneficial. Her-2/neu overexpression is related to most of the prognostic variables of EC and may be incorporated into the criteria for determination of tumor aggressiveness as a prognostic marker.