| Background and aims In recent years, amount of studies in cells and animal models have proved vitamin D has multifarious antitumor effects. However, epidemiological studies showed inconsistent result on gastric cancer. The antitumor role is mainly mediated by the vitamin D receptor(VDR). Our hypothesis is that VDR may abnormally(poorly) expressed in gastric cancer tissue. Present study is aimed at discovering and analyzing VDR expression in a series of human gastric tissues, including normal, premalignant, and malignant gastric tissue, and correlated VDR to the clinicopathological parameters of gastric cancer patients.Materails and methods Immunohistochemical expression of local VDR was examined in normal and malignant tissue from 92 gastric cancer patients, and chronic atrophic gastritis(n=50), intestinal metaplasia(n=52), atypical hyperplasia tissues(n=46), which were obtained from gastroscopic with biopsy. All the samples were collected from Gansu Province People's Hospital. The ?2 test was used to analyze the VDR expression as well as the relationship between VDR and the clinicopathological factors of gastric cancer patients.Results Compared with normal(82.61%) and premalignant tissues(73.64%), VDR was lower expressed in cancer tissues(57.61%), with a statistically significant difference(P=0.001). Among cancer tissues, VDR was higher expressed in well and moderate differentiated tissues contrasted with tissues with poor differentiation, and higher expressed in small tumors(<5cm) compared with large tumors(?5cm), with a statistically significant difference respectively(p=0.016, p=0.009). A decline linear trend appeared when analyzing the statistical difference of VDR expression among normal, premalignant, and malignant gastric tissues.Conclusions VDR expression has been on the decline from the premalignant stage, finally low expressed in gastric cancer tissues, especial in poorly differentiated tissues. VDR could be a potential prognostic factor for patients with gastric cancer. |
PDF Full Text Request