Clinicopathological and prognostic significance of mucin phenotype in gastric cancer

Abstract

Mucin phenotype has a significant prognostic value and may be a useful marker for the treatment of human gastric carcinoma.

Mucin Expression in Gastric Cancer: Reappraisal of Its Clinicopathologic and Prognostic Significance

“…Lee et al 6 reported that the mucin intestinal phenotype was associated with a significantly better prognosis. In contrast, Wakatsuki et al 7 found that the same immunophenotype was associated with a significantly worse prognosis and a higher rate of postoperative liver metastasis. Notably, many different antibodies have been used to evaluate mucin expression, as well as different cutoff values for the definition of mucin positivity, leading us to speculate that these differences are responsible for the inconsistent results.…”

“…Adenocarcinomas with at least 10% reactivity for each mucin gene antibody were identified as positive as previously reported. 7,8,13 Mucin phenotypes were further subdivided into gastric (only gastric mucin positive) and gastricpredominant gastrointestinal phenotypes and intestinal (only intestinal mucin positive) and intestinal-predominant gastrointestinal phenotypes and null type based on the combination of predominant patterns of MUC5AC, MUC2, MUC6, and CD10 staining according to Tsukashita et al 17 We defined gastric cancer with gastric mucin predominant type (GC-GP) as gastric type plus gastric-predominant gastrointestinal phenotypes (gastric type þ gastric-predominant gastrointestinal type) and gastric cancer with intestinal mucin predominant type (GC-IP) as intestinal type plus intestinal-predominant gastrointestinal phenotypes (intestinal type þ intestinal-predominant gastrointestinal type) for comparison based on the predominant mucin expression.…”

“…4 Recently, immunohistochemistry specific to various mucins (MUC1, MUC2, MUC3, MUC4, MUC5AC, MUC5B, MUC6, MUC7, and MUC8) has been used to evaluate the mucin phenotypes of gastric cancer. [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] Of these mucin markers, MUC5AC, MUC2, MUC6, and CD10 are generally used to classify gastric cancers. CD10 is used to detect the brush border of intestinal-typed cells.…”

“…Furthermore, the clinical validity of mucin expression in gastric cancer remains debated despite many attempts to investigate the clinicopathologic and prognostic significance of the mucin immunophenotype of gastric cancer. [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] Although there are several reports demonstrating a correlation between mucin expression and prognosis in gastric cancers, controversies or conflicting results have been published. For example, several investigators report that a gastric mucin phenotype is a poor prognostic indicator, whereas other reports indicate the intestinal mucin phenotype to be associated with a worse outcome or to have no correlation with survival.…”

“…For example, several investigators report that a gastric mucin phenotype is a poor prognostic indicator, whereas other reports indicate the intestinal mucin phenotype to be associated with a worse outcome or to have no correlation with survival. [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] With this information in hand, we tried to elucidate the precise clinicopathologic and prognostic importance of mucin expression in 412 gastric cancer patients.…”