Immunohistochemical consistency between primary tumors and lymph node metastases of gastric neuroendocrine carcinoma
World Journal of Surgical Oncology, 06/26/2012
Uchiyama C et al. – Metastatic lymph nodes showed heterogeneous immunohistochemical expression patterns similar to the primary sites. G-NEC is far advanced at diagnosis and rapidly reaches the lymph nodes retaining its heterogeneity, carrying a worse prognosis than common gastric cancer.
Methods- Seven cases of G-NEC were identified among 1,027 cases of gastric carcinoma that underwent gastrectomy at Kansai Rousai Hospital between 2002 and 2010.
- We studied the pathological and immunohistochemical features of gastric neuroendocrine carcinomas at both the primary site and metastatic lymph nodes.
- The mean patient age was 73 years (range 63 to 86 years).
- There were no females in this series.
- The final staging was Stage I in one case, Stage II in two, Stage III in two and Stage IV in two.
- A total of 31 metastatic lymph nodes were found in these patients.
- This study revealed that the ratio of neuroendocrine cells was similar between the primary and metastatic sites, which tended to show the same expression patterns of neuroendocrine markers.
