The Expression And Clinical Significance Of CD117, Nestin And Ki-67 In Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumors

Objective: To investigate the expression of CD117, Nestin andKi-67 in gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST) and its relationshipwith the clinicopathological features and distinguishing malignantfrom benign of GIST.Methods: The expression of CD117, Nestin and Ki-67 wasdetected with S-P staining and distinguishing malignant from benignin all cases based on the observations of light microscopy.Then thecorrelation between immunohistochemical findings and theclinicopathological features (gender, age,location and histologicaltype) and distinguished malignant from benign of GIST wereanalyzed.Results : Of 27 GIST, the positive rates of CD117 and CD34were 88.9% and 92.6% , respectively. The Ki-67 proliferationindices were <1 % , 1 %-5 % and >5 % in 7, 9 and 11 patients ,respectively. Expression of CD117, CD34 and Ki-67 had nosignificant difference between groups in gender, age and histologicaltypes. The number of patients at benign, potential malignant andmalignant was 6,9 and 12, respectively. Further data showed thatexpression of CD117 and Nestin proteins had no significantdifference between different benign and malignant. Nevertheless ,Ki-67 protein had higher expression in higher risk cases ( P<0.01).Conclusion: CD117 and Nestin, both highly expressed inGIST, can serve as diagnostic markers for GIST, but can not be usedfor assessing the risk of patients. The expression of Ki-67 proteinmight be a risk indicator for GIST and a predictor for prognosis.