COMPARISON OF STEROID-HORMONE RECEPTORS, PLOIDY, EGFR, HER2-NEU, AND CATHEPSIN-D CONTENT IN HEALTHY AND TUMOR GASTROINTESTINAL SAMPLES

Several prognostic factors, known to be useful in breast cancer, have been evaluated in healthy and tumor samples of patients affected by ga stric (21 cases) and colorectal cancer (43 cases). Very low levels of estrogen and progesterone receptors (ER and PgR) were found. Prolifera tive activity, evaluated as S-phase of diploid cases, significantly in creased in tumor samples and the incidence of aneuploid stemlines was higher in patients with C and D Astler-Coller stages. Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFr) oncoprotein level in normal colorectal mucosa was higher than in neoplastic tissue, while in gastric tumors an inver se behaviour was observed. In these tumors an increase of HER-2/neu on coprotein occurred in intestinal rather than in diffuse type. Among th e markers studied, Cathepsin D (Cat D) appeared to be the most strongl y involved in the neoplastic changes and a multivariate analysis showe d that its association to HER-2/neu had the highest capacity to discri minate normal from neoplastic samples.