HER-2/neu Overxpression in Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma (ESCC) and Its Correlation with Patient’s Clinicopathological Features

Background: HER-2/neu overexpression has been reported in various human cancers and identified as a significant predictor of poor survival. In this study HER-2/neu overexpression and its associations with clinicopathological characteristics were evaluated in patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed on 64 patients with histological diagnosis of primary ESCC who underwent surgery for curative treatment. Immunohistochemistry (IHC) was used to assess expression of HER-2/neu receptor in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue blocks. Results: The mean age of patients was 60.1_1.28 years. The overall HER2 expression was observed in 51.5% of ESCC patients without considering IHC scores. HER2/neu overexpression (6%) was significantly associated with the tumor differentiation (P < 0.001). 20.3% of cases were stage I, 67.2% stage II, and 12.5% stage III. 17 patients (26.2%) had vascular invasion, 12 patients (18.8%) had neuronal invasion and 7 patients (10.9%) had invasion to margins. Nine of 12 patients with HER-2/neu over expression had thoracic tumors and only three of them had an abdominal ESCC. Conclusions: No significant correlations were found between HER2/neu overexpression and gender, age, tumor invasion, location of tumor, TNM stages and stage of tumor in patients with ESCC.