Expression EGF, TGF-a And EGFR In Pancreatic Carcinoma And Its Clinical Value

Objective:In order to investigate the possible mechanism of pancreatic carcinogenesis and the clinical value of EGF,TGF-a and EGFR expression in pancreatic carcinoma,an immuhistochemical PV6000 method was used to examine the expression of the three kinds of proteins.Material and Methods:(1) PV-6000 immunohistochemical method was performed on 40 surgically resected primary pancreatic adenocarcinoma samples and 12 normal pancreatic tissue samples for the detection of EGF,TGF-a and EGFR.(2)The data were analyzed by software SPSS11.5,X~2-test or exact probability-test was used to compare difference between groups and Spearman grade correlation test was used to analyze the correlation between TGF-a and EGFR.a=0.05 was considered as level of a test.Results:(1) Positive staining of EGF was mainly located in the cytoplasm and/or on the surface of pancreatic carcinoma cells with the positive rate of 67.5%(27/40).In the normal pancreatic tissue,the positive rate of EGF was 16.7%(2/12).There were significant difference(P＜0.01) when comparison was made between pancreatic carcinoma group and normal pancreatic tissue group,and there were no significance between the comparisions of sex,age,cancinoma location,staging of TNM and differentiation.(2)Positive staining of TGF-a was mainly located in the cytoplasm and/or in the nucleus of pancreatic carcinoma cells with the positive rate of 72.5%(29/40).In the normal pancreatic tissue,the positive rate of TGF-a was 16.7%(2/12).There were significant differences(P＜0.01) when comparison was made between pancreatic carcinoma group and normal pancreatic tissue group,and there were no significance between the comparisions of sex,age,cancinoma location,staging of TNM and differentiation.(3) EGFR was stained mainly in the cytoplasm and/or on the surface of pancreatic carcinoma cells with positive rate of 45.0%(18/40).In the normal pancreatic tissue,the positive rate of EGFR was 8.30%(1/12).There were significant differences(P＜0.05) when comparison was made between pancreatic carcinoma group and normal pancreatic tissue group,and there were no significance between the comparisions of sex,age,cancinoma location,staging of TNM and differentiation. (4)The concomitant expression of EGF,TGF-a and EGFR was observed in a percentage of 17.5%(7/40) in 40 cases of pancreatic carcinoma,and the percentage of the concomitant expression of two kinds of proteins is 70.0%(28/40),No distinct concomitant staining was detected in normal pancreatic tissue.A positive correlation was observed between the expression of TGF-a and EGF that of EGFR in pancreatic carcinoma(P＜0.05).Conclusions:(1) Overexpression of EGF,TGF-a and EGFR were involved in pancreatic tumorigenesis and the expression of EGF,TGF-a and EGFR alone did not correlate with any clinicopathologic factors such as differentiation,age,sex,TNM stage and cancinoma location of the pancreatic carcinoma.(2)Our data suggested that overexpression of EGF,TGF-a and EGFR was a common event in digestive tumorigenesis and therefore EGF,TGF-a and EGFR were be promising chemotherapeutic targets for the treatment of digestive cancers.(3)The positive correlation between the expression of TGF-a,EGF and EGFR suggested that the autocrine loop of TGF-a/EGF and EGFR in pancreatic carcinoma cells contributed to the carcinogenesis of this cancer.(4) EGF,TGF-a and EGFR played a cooperative role in pancreatic tumorigenesis.