HER2 immunohistochemical expression and its association with clinicopathological features of gastric adenocarcinoma in Uganda
Mohamed Kahiye1
, James Yahaya2, Sam Kalungi3, Hawa Nalwoga4
1 Department of Pathology, Sahan Pathology Laboratories, Mogadishu, Somalia
2 Department of Pathology, Soroti University Faculty of Medicine, Soroti, Uganda
3 Department of Pathology, Mulago National Referral Hospital, Kampala, Uganda
4 Department of Pathology, Makerere College of Health Sciences, Kampala, Uganda
Abstract
Objective: Despite the remarkable improvement in gastric adenocarcinoma treatment modalities, the prognosis of gastric adenocarcinoma remains poor. The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of HER2 immunohistochemical expression and its association with clinicopathological features of patients with gastric adenocarcinoma.
Material and Methods: This was a cross-sectional study which was conducted at the department of pathology. A total of 86 formalin fixed paraffin embedded tissue blocks of the patients who were confirmed histologically with gastric adenocarcinoma from January 2009 to December 2019 were included in the analysis. Laboratory requisition form and patients’ files were used to extract the clinical and pathological data of the cases. Immunohistochemistry to assess HER2 overexpression was done using monoclonal (SP3 clone) rabbit anti-HER2/neu (Thermo Fisher Scientific-USA). Chi-square statistical test was used to determine the association of the clinicopathological characteristics with HER2 expression. P< 0.05 was considered statistically significant.
Results: Mean age of the patients included in the study was 58.5 ± 14.3 years, and over half 54.7% (n= 47) of the patients were males. Poorly cohesive non-signet ring types contributed most (47.7%) (n= 41) of the cases, and diffuse/mixed histological subtypes were more prevalent (57%) (n= 49) subtypes. Poorly differentiated cases accounted for the majority (66.3%) (n= 57) of the cases. The prevalence of HER2 immunohistochemical expression was 8.1% (n= 7). None of the clinicopathological characteristics were associated with HER2 expression.
Conclusion: This study has shown almost every one in 10 patients with gastric adenocarcinoma may express HER2 when using immunohistochemistry test. However, the HER2 in this study was not associated with age, sex, tumor location, the nature of biopsy, histological subtypes, and tumor grade.
Keywords: Gastric adenocarcinoma, HER2 overexpression, prognosis, clinicopathological characteristics
Cite this article as: Kahiye M, Yahaya J, Kalungi S, Nalwoga H. HER2 immunohistochemical expression and its association with clinicopathological features of gastric adenocarcinoma in Uganda. Turk J Surg 2024; 40 (4): 328- 335.