Analysis of the survival period in resectable stage IV gastric cancer.

Abstract

Patients with stage IV gastric cancer usually have a poor prognosis, but some patients with resectable cancer survive for more than 5 years. We aimed to study the correlation of protein expression and survival in resectable stage IV gastric cancer. Tissue samples of 42 patients with resectable stage IV gastric cancer were stained immunohistochemically for the mutant p53 protein and heat shock protein-27 (hsp27). The correlation between protein expression and clinicopathological factors was investigated. Furthermore, prognostic value of each factor was analyzed. Univariate analysis showed that pN factors (Japanese classification, P = .028; International Union Against Cancer classification, P = .024), blood vessel invasion (P = .043), hsp27 overexpression (P = .019), and the index of p53 and hsp27 overexpression (P = .0026) had a prognostic influence. Only Lauren classification, however, revealed the prognostic influence in multivariate analysis (P = .046). These results suggest that immunostaining of tumor specimens for p53 and hsp27 and clinicopathological analysis may help predict the survival of patients with resectable stage IV gastric cancer.