Immunohistochemical detection of thymidylate synthase in advanced gastric cancer: A prognostic indicator in patients undergoing gastrectomy followed by adjuvant chemotherapy with 5-fluoropyrimidines
Y. Suda et al., Immunohistochemical detection of thymidylate synthase in advanced gastric cancer: A prognostic indicator in patients undergoing gastrectomy followed by adjuvant chemotherapy with 5-fluoropyrimidines, ANTICANC R, 19(1B), 1999, pp. 805-810
To investigate prognostic indicators for gastric adenocarcinomas in advance
d stage, we have carried out immunohistochemical determination of thymidyla
te synthase (TS) in carcinoma tissues. Sixty seven cases of curatively rese
cted gastric carcinoma, under 70 years old at the time of surgery who had b
een in the same grade of invasion and lymphnodal involvements (pT3/pN2, Sta
ge IIIB), and had underwent postoperative 5FU-related chemotherapy far a lo
ng period were extracted from the files of our hospital. Formulin-fixed and
paraffin-embedded specimens were stained with an antibody for human TS (po
lyclonal). A positive signal was always compared with some types of inflamm
atory cells in the same slide because of their constantly strong signal. No
rmal control tissue used was human bone marrow, containing blastic cells. B
oth staining intensity and the fraction of positively stained carcinoma cel
ls were examined in each case, and then the results were summarized with re
spect to fraction of positively stained carcinoma cells. The present study
indicates that the TS-negative group had better survival than the positive
group (p<0.05), rite 5 Lear survival rates being 42.3% and 25.1%, respectiv
ely which suggests that the frequency of TS-positive carcinoma cells could
also be a prognostic indicator.