E-cadherin Immunohistochemical Expression in Gastric Carcinoma

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Carcinoma of the stomach is a disease with agrave prognosis. The revelation of the genetic and molecularbasis of gastric cancer has helped the development of targetedtherapies which has the potential to improve survival.Decreased expression of Epithelial cadherin (E-cadherin)in gastric carcinoma is one such genetic alteration whichcould help in targeted therapy and prognostication. Theobjective of the present study was to identify E- cadherinimmunohistochemical expression in gastric carcinoma and itscorrelation with histopathological features.Material and Methods: Gastric biopsies and surgicalspecimens from a tertiary care center in South Indiawere included and assessed by light microscopy andimmunohistochemistry (IHC).Results: Aberrant E-cadherin staining was seen in 42.8% ofgastric adenocarcinoma. Aberrant staining was found withdisproportionately high frequency in diffuse-type (95.5%)when compared to intestinal-type (18.6%) and mixed type(20%) with very high statistical significance with P <0.001. All(100%) poorly differentiated tumors had aberrant E- cadherinstaining while only 21.2% of moderately differentiated and12.5% of well-differentiated tumors had aberrant E-cadherinstaining and this was statistically highly significant with P<0.001. In this study, there was no significant associationbetween E-cadherin with age, gender, nature of the specimen,site of the tumor, size of the tumor, lymph node status andtumor invasion.Conclusion: This study emphasizes the importance ofidentification of aberrant E-cadherin expression in gastriccarcinomas which in turn helps in selecting patients for noveltherapies which might improve the prognosis of this gravedisease.