Expression Of Twist In Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumor(GIST) With Its Clinicopathological Significance

Objective: To investigate the expression of Twist in gastrointestinal stromal tumor(GIST) and analyze its correlation with the prognosis of patients.Methods: The clinical and pathological data of the 40 patients with GIST admitted between January 2003 and March 2008 in Xiangya Hospital were analyzed. Immunohistochemical staining using polyclonal Twist antibody were performed on paraffin embedded specimens from 40 patients with GIST, and 20 specimens of the normal gastrointestinal tissue were used as control. The relationship of the expression of twist in GIST with clinicopathologic data and prognosis was analyzed.Results : Twist was detected in 31 case (77.5%) of gastrointestinal stromal tumor(GIST) and 5 case (25%) of the normal gastrointestinal tissue . The difference of Twist expression was not significant in different groups of the aged , gender and primary organ of patients(P>0.05), while it was significant in group of the histological grade(P <0.05).The 5-year survival rate of Twist positive group and negative group was 43.5% and 70% respectively.Conclusion: The expression of Twist was up-regulated in GIST, and it was closely related to the degree of malignancy of GIST. So Twist may be used as an objective parameter for evaluating the degree of malignancy.