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

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).
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.
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 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.