Evaluation of Incidence of Helicobacter Pylori infection and HER2/neu Oncogene Expression in Pathology Samples of Patients with Gastric Cancer and their Association with Stage of Disease in Shohada Tajrish Hospital

Gastric cancer is one the most prevalent cancers around the world and is associated with low survival rates despite the advances in therapy modalities. This low rate of survival is mainly due to delayed seeking for treatment. Helicobacter pylori and HER2/neu gene overexpression are suggested as prognostic factors for gastric cancer. In this study, we evaluated the association of these two factors in gastric cancer.
Materials &

Fifty-nine patients with gastric cancer who had undergone gastrectomy in Shohda-Tajrish hospital during 2014 to 2015 were evaluated in this study. Histopathologic assessment of the samples was done and the frequencies of Helicobacter pylori positivity and HER2/neu overexpression were measured. The stage of gastric cancer was determined in patients. The data were analyzed with SPSS 20.0 and the associations of study parameters were investigated.

Mean age was 60.0 years. 74.6% of the study patients were male. 42.4% were positive for Helicobacter pylori. The status of HER2/neu membrane staining was as follows: 3+ (18.6%), 2+ (8.5%), 1+ (11.9%) and negative (61%). The most common stage was stage IV (47.5%). The association between Helicobacter pylori and HER2/neu expression was not significant (P > 0.05). The HER2/neu overexpression was correlated with disease stage and survival duration (P < 0.05).

Overall, there was a potential correlation between HER2/neu overexpression and lower survival in our study. There was no other significant association between parameters. Positive Helobacter pylori could not predict HER2/neu overexpression.