The Prognostic Significance of ErbB1 (EGFR) Expressions in Patients with Curative Resection for Colorectal Cancers

PURPOSE: The ErbB family is associated with cell growth, differentiation, cell survival, apoptosis, cell cycle progression, angiogenesis. In this study, the expressions of ErbB family of colorectal cancer specimen were investigated to determined correlations between the clinicopathologic characteristics and the expression of ErbB family in the curative resection for colorectal cancers, including cancer specific survival. METHODS: Patients who underwent the curative surgery for colorectal cancers from January 1997 to December 2000 at Ansan Medical Center, Korea University College of Medicine were enrolled in this study, and one hundred ninety six of colorectal cancer. The clinical relationship between the expression of ErbB family for colon adenocarcinoma and clinicopathologic characteristic factors including survival were analyzed. RESULTS: There was no clinical relationship of the expression of ErbB family with clinicopatholologic characteristics. However, survival analysis demonstrated that 5 year survival rates (5YSR) of patients with the positive expression of ErbB1 (EGFR) was lower than those of the negative expression of ErbB1 (P<0.05) in colorectal cancer patients. Moreover 5YSR of the positive expression of ErbB1 was lower than that of negative expression of ErbB1 in well differentiation subgroup, node negative subgroup, node positive subgroup, and also stage T3 subgroup (P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: The positive ErbB1 expression of colorectal cancer was one of poor prognostic factors in patients with colorectal cancer in this study. We need the further study to prove the real relation between target therapy for the positive expression of ErbB1 (EGFR) in colorectal cancer and the improvement of survival rate.

Expression of Heregulin and ErbB Family Proteins in Gastric Adenocarcinomas: Correlation with Clinopathologic Prognostic Factors

PURPOSE: Heregulin is a natural ligand for erbB3 and erbB4. However, very little is known about their roles in the gastric cancer. This retrospective study was performed to evaluate the frequencies of heregulin and erbB family protein expression and to compare their expressions with clinicopathologic parameters. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Immunohistochemical expressions of heregulin and erbB family proteins were examined with tissue micro-array slides. A total of 251 gastric adenocarcinomas were classified as early cancers and advanced cancers and as having and not having lymph node metastases. RESULTS: The positive rates of the heregulin, erbB1, erbB2, erbB3, and erbB4 protein stainings were 64%, 68%, 6%, 88%, and 76%, respectively. Intestinal type gastric adenocarcinomas showed higher expression of heregulin, erbB2, erbB3, and erbB4 proteins. Heregulin and erbB4 proteins showed lower expressions in advanced gastric carcinomas. However, erbB2 protein showed higher expression in advanced gastric carcinomas. The protein expressions of heregulin and erbB family proteins showed no relationship with survival rate. Co-expression groups of heregulin and erbB3 proteins or heregulin and erbB4 proteins showed higher expressions in intestinal type adenocarcinomas and early gastric carcinomas. CONCLUSION: Heregulin, erbB3, and erbB4 proteins may play a role in the early stage of adenocarcinomas.

Progress of study on lapatinib / 中国药理学通报

EGFR/HER-2 is an attractive therapeutic target for solid tumors.Lapatinib is an orally administered dual inhibitor of EGFR/HER-2 tyosine kinases.Preclinical experiments in vitro and in vivo models indicate that lapatinib is active against various solid tumors.Phase Ⅰ trials have shown an acceptable adverse event.Phase Ⅱand Ⅲ trials demonstrate the promising results for the treatment of metastatic,refractory,inflammatory,or brain metastatic breast cancer.With the further developments of biology,the molecular targeted chemotherapy becomes a novel adjuvant therapy for advanced breast cancer patients.