Expression of HER2 in Colorectal Cancer Does Not Correlate with Prognosis

Abstract

Abstract. Estimation of HER2 membranous expression is routinely used in breast and gastric cancers, as both a prognostic and a predictive factor. To date there is no evidence for similar application of HER2 expression in colorectal cancer (CRC) cells. In CRC, HER2 is sometimes overexpressed in the cell membrane and very often in the cytoplasm. This study was conducted to determine possible correlations between both membranous and cytoplasmatic expression of HER2 in CRC cells and the outcome of the disease. The prognostic significance of combined staining intensity in the cell membrane and cytoplasm in the entire CRC cell was also investigated. HER2 expression in resectable colorectal adenocarcinoma cells was evaluated by immunohistochemistry in specimens taken from 202 patients. The percentage of cancer cells with membranous or cytoplasmatic reactions and the staining intensity of the reaction in the whole cell were recorded. A membranous reaction was present in 27% of cases, and cytoplasmatic reaction in 66% of cases. The total staining intensity in the entire cell was evaluated as moderate (2+) in 32% of cases and strong (3+) staining in 15%. There was no correlation found between either membranous or cytoplasmatic HER2 expression and survival. Furthermore combined staining intensity did not provide any prognostic information. We conclude that HER2 expression in CRC does not correlate with prognosis.

Frequency of Her2/neu expression in colorectal adenocarcinoma: A study from developing South Asian country

“…Our study observed majority of colorectal cancers with cytoplasmic expression of Her-2/neu (48 %) which corresponds to the studies which followed all the three parameters of Her-2/neu evaluation [15,17,20,21]. In our series we found 26.6 % positivity for membranous Her- 2/neu staining.…”

Lack of Effects of HER-2/neu on Prognosis in Colorectal Cancer: a Meta-analysis

“…Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention, Vol 15, 2014 5555 DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.7314/APJCP.2014.15.14.5551 Lack of Effects of HER-2/neu on Prognosis in Colorectal Cancer: a Meta-analysis al., 2009Kruszewski et al, 2010). In our meta-analysis, two prospective studies and five studies of Asian patients revealed HER-2/neu to be a worse prognostic factor for CRC without significant heterogeneity.…”

Assessment of a HER2 scoring system for colorectal cancer: results from a validation study

“…[6][7][8][9][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] The present study is unique because the only study with an equally large sample size, albeit without clinical validation, reported much lower rates of both ERBB2 expression (2.7%) and positive amplification (1.6%). 8 This difference very likely resides in the fact that while our findings have been obtained on a primarily metastatic population, Heppner et al 8 tested only primary tumors using a different staining antibody (SP3) and a different in situ hybridization method (CISH), and employed gastric cancer criteria to test and score the samples.…”

“…These are routinely used to establish ERBB2 status in breast and gastric cancer but have not been customized for colorectal cancer for which the reported rate for ERBB2 positivity ranges enormously from o1% to 450%. [6][7][8][9][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] The aim of the present study was to develop a validated ERBB2 scoring system for colorectal cancer with the goal of identifying ERBB2-positive patients suitable for enrollment in the HERACLES trial.…”