1Department of Surgery, College of Medicine Soonchunhyang University, Seoul, Korea. 2Department of Pathology, College of Medicine Soonchunhyang University, Seoul, Korea.
ABSTRACT
PURPOSE: This research was performed to investigate the relationship between CD44 and cancer cell invasion depth, histologic differentiation, tumor size and lymph node metastasis in the gastric carcinoma.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: In 20 cases of early gastric cancer and 40 cases of advanced gastric cancer, the immunohistochemical staining for CD44v3 and CD44v5 was performed.
RESULTS: 1. In all 60 cases, the positive rates for CD44v3 and CD44v5 were 18.3% and 71.7% respectively. 2. CD44v5 was expressed in 45% of early gastric cancer and 85% of advanced gastric cancer. 3. Larger tumor exhibited higher positive rates for CD44v5. 4. There were 28 cases of lymph node metastases out of 43 cases of CD44v5-positive primary gastric carcinoma (65.1%), and were 4 cases of lymph node metastases out of 17 CD44v5-negative cases (23.5%). 5. The 5 year survival rate was low in CD44v5- positive cases (p-value=0.039).
CONCLUSION: The tumors that exhibit deep invasion and have large size and lymph node metastases tend to have more frequent expression of CD44v3 and CD44v5. In especially CD44v5. We found a good correlation between he expression of CD44v5 and the established prognostic factors. Actually we can use the CD44v5 rather than CD44v3 as a prognostic factor in advanced gastric cancer.
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