The Expression Of C-erbB4/HER4 In Human Colon Carcinoma And Its Clinical Significance

Background:Colon cancer remains one of the most frequent malignant neoplasms of alimentary tract in China.When diagnosed,some patients have metastasis of lymph node and other organs,and these patients often have a poor outcome.Thus,the research of mechanism of metastasis of colon cancer has a significant clinical value.A lot of researches have confirmed that many genes and their products take part in metastasis of tumor.Among those,the expression of HER4 gene can appear in many tissues in our body,but its over expression is often correlated with the metastasis of lymph node and other organs and prognosticate prognosis mala.Thus HER4 gene becomes a hot spot of research in recent years.This may be contribute to the next study if we know the rule of HER4 expression and the relationship between HER4 and the colon carcinoma pathology parameter.However studies to investigate the relationship between HER4 gene and colon cancer are fewer,and the result is contradictory.The researches studied the expression of HER4 in colon carcinoma with SP immunohistochemistry and analyzed the relationship between the expression and clinical pathological characterization of colon carcinoma.Objective:To investigate the expression of HER4 in colon carcinoma and the possible significance.Methods:The specimens were taken from 47 colon carcinoma tissues and 6 normal colon tissues from the affiliated tumour hospital of Harbin medical university.SP immunohistochemistry was used to evaluate the expression of HER4 in 47 colon carecnoma tissues and 6 normal colon tissues.Results:1.HER4 is expressed both in colon carcinoma tissues and normal colon tissues,but there is no overexpression of HER4 in normal colon tissues,and the overexpression rate of HER4 in colon carcinoma was 48.94%(P=0.023 ).2.The overexpression rate of HER4 was seen in 0%(0/2) Dukes stage A cases,35.71%(10/28)stage B cases,75.00%(9/12)stage C cases and 80.00% (4/5) stage D cases(P=0.028).12 of 16(75.00%) cases with metastasis of lymphnode have overexpression expression of HER4,while only 11 of 31 (35.48%) cases without metastasis of lymph node(P=0.010).Conclusions:1.The overexpression of HER4 is elevated in colon carcinoma,and its overexpression is significantly associated with clinical stage,metastasis of lymph node and pathology type of colon cancer.2.HER-4 overexpression status may prognosticate colon carcinoma with more malignant level,more aggressive biological behavior and more increased metastatic potential.3.As the differentiation level decrease,the overexpression of HER4 is obviously elevated in colon carcinoma.lt is deserve to pay more attention.