Expression And Clinical Significance Of CDw75 And Human Telomerase Reverse Transcriptase (hTERT) In Human Gastric Carcinomas

Purpose to investigate the expression of CDw75 antigen(cluster of differentiation antigen 75)and human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) protein in gastric carcinomas, and the relationship between their expression and the clinicopathologic parameters (such as infiltration, metastasis, and TNM stage, et al. )of gastric carcinomas . Method Immunohistochemical method was used to detect the expression of CDw75 antigen and hTERT protein in 55 cases of gastric carcinomas, 12 cases of precancerous lesions(7 of moderate and severe dysplasia, 5 of moderate and severe intestinal metplasia), and 13 of normal gastric mucosa. The percentage of cells positively stained with CDw75 and hTERT were counted using a computer-aided microscopic image analysis system. Results â‘ CDw75 was not expressed in normal gastric mucosas and precancerous lesions, but detected in 26 of the 55 (47.3%)gastric carcinomas. The expression of CDw75 was statistically significantly associated with tumor size(p=0.015),invasive depth(p=0.004),lymph node metastasis(p=0.003) and TNM stage(p=0.009),but not associated with patient age, gender, tumor location, Lauren type or degree of differentiation. â‘¡The detected positive rate of hTERT protein varied as follows: 0/13(0.0%) in normal gastric mucosa, 3/12(25.0%) in precancerous lesions, 46/55(83.6%) in gastric carcinomas. The positive rate of hTERT in gastric carcinomas was significantly higher than that in precancerous lesions and normal mucosas(X~2 =17.238,33.607, p<0.001). The expression of hTERT protein was statistically significantly associated with invasive depth(p=0.032), lymph node metastasis(p=0.022), but not associated with patient age, gender, tumor location, tumor size, Lauren type, degree of differentiation or TNM stage(p>0.05). Conclusions: â‘ the expression of CDw75 antigen in gastric carcinomas might be a hallmark of neoplastic transformation and help determine the malignantly biological behavior of gastric carcinomas. â‘¡the increased hTERT protein expression might be a useful marker for diagnosis of gastric carcinoma, and a useful tool for predicting the malignant change potential of gastric precancerous lesions. Up-regulated hTERT protein expression happened not only at the early stage but later stage of gastric carcinogenesis. Detecting hTERT by immunohistochemistry method was proved to be convenient, economical and easy to spread.