Survey of HER2-neu Expression in Colonic Adenocarcinoma in the West of Iran

Background: Overexpression of HER2-neu has been reported in many epithelial malignancies, including cancers of the breast, ovaries, lungs, prostate, bladder, pancreas, colorectum and stomach as well as osteosarcomas. The aim of this study was evaluation of expression of HER2-neu immunohistochemistry (IHC) status and clinicopathologic features in a series of colonic adenocarcinomas. Materials and
Methods: In this descriptive and analytical study, we surveyed 211 samples of colon adenocarcinoma from 182 patients (86.3%) undergoing total or partial colectomy and 29 (7.13%) with biopsies by colonoscopy. A sufficient sample size was obtained from all cases and the slides were stained with hematoxylin and eosin and also by IHC (HER2) staining.
Results: The mean age for the patients at diagnosis was 57.9 years (range, 15-88 years). One hundred and twenty one patients (57.3%) were male. Of all patients, 201 samples (95.3%) were conventional adenocarcinomas (159, 29 and 13 cases were well, moderately and poorly differentiated, respectively) and 10 (4.7%) were mucinous type. Out of 211 cases, 171 were checked for lymph nodes metastasis and 64 were positive. There is a correlation between HER2 scores and differentiation, most score 3 cases being well differentiated (P<0.05).
Conclusions: In patients with advanced colon cancer, surgery alone is not curative and other forms of therapy may be required to prolong patient survival. HER2 overexpression was found in some cases and this could be a guideline to new adjuvant therapy for these patients.