Clinicopathologic Significance Of MMP-12 Expression In Human Gastric Cancer

Objective:To investigate the expression of matrix metalloproteinase 12(MMP-12) in human gastric cancer,its correlation with the clinic-pathologic factors and its influence on tumor prognosis.Material and Methods:Immunohistochemistry tecnique were used to examine the expression of MMP-12 in 61 specimens of human gastric cancer.The correlation between MMP-12 expression and its clinicopathologic factors, and the role of MMP-12 in the progression and prognosis of gastric cancer were evaluated.Results:The positive rate of MMP-12 expression in the tissue of gastric cancer is 39.3%.The expression of MMP-12 in gastric cancer showed an inverse correlation with histologic type,depth of invasion,lymph node metastasis,stage of tumor(P＜0.05).MMP-12 expression showed no notable correlation with the sex and age of patient,tumor location,tumor size, canalis haemalis invasion and metastasis.Survival analysis indicated that patients with overexpression of MMP-12 significantly demonstrated better survival compared with those patients who did not show overexpression of MMP-12(P＜0.05).However,MMP-12 was not an independent prognosis factor for gastric cancer.Conslusion:These findings demonstrate that MMP-12 play an important role in the inhibition of tumor progression in patients with gastric cancer and that its overexpression is correlated with a better prognosis. MMP-12 may serve as an effective indicator for the prediction of biological behavior and disease prognosis in gastric cancer.