Clinico-pathologic significance of neuroen docrine cells in gastric career tissue

摘要

AIMS To elucidate the biological and clinicopathological significance of neuroendocrine (NE) cells in gastric carcinoma(GC). METHODS One hundred and eighty-nine cases of various histo-logical types of GC were observed using light microscopy, histochemistry, immunohistochemistry and electron microscopy. Of them 127 patients were followed up. RESULTS Chromogranin A (CgA) positive GC was demonstrated in 85 cases (45.0%). The types of NE cells in GC were probed using 9 kinds of hormone antibodies 49 cases (67.2%) contained more than one hormone. NE cells were found more often in poorly differentiated GC than in well differentiated ones(P < 0.01). Expression of some kinds of hormone was relative to the differentiation and histological types of GC. BOM、 CT(P < 0.01) GAST and 5-HT (P < 0.05) were more expressed in poorly differentiated cases than in well defferentiated ones. Nineteen cases of the matastatic foci in regional lymph nodes were found to have CgA positive cancer cells. The presence of HCG in matastatic lymph nodes was more often observed than that of other hormone (P < 0.01). The survival rate of patients with NE positive GC was 38.9% and negative GC 52.7%. Five of 7 patients (71. 4%) with somatostatin positive GC still survived at follow up of 33-66 months, but 4 patients with HCG positive GC died in 12-29 months. CONCLUSIONS The NE cells occur more frequently in poorly differentiated GC. Certain hormones appear to be related to the metastasis and prognosis.