Study of c‐erbB‐2 protein and epidermal growth factor receptor expression and DNA ploidy pattern in colorectal carcinoma

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Abstract
Correlation of c‐erbB‐2 protein (n = 44), epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) (n = 41) expression, and DNA ploidy pattern (n = 42) with clinical outcomes of human colorectal cancers was studied. Using monoclonal antibodies against c‐erbB‐2 protein and EGFR, an immunohis‐tochemical study of the expression of c‐erbB‐2 protein and EGFR in frozen tissue sections from the lesion was performed. There was no significant correlation between the expression of c‐erbB‐2 protein and clinicopatho‐logical findings such as, tumor size, histological type, depth of invasion, lymph node metastasis, lymphatic vessel invasion, or venous invasion. However, the incidence of c‐erbB‐2 protein expression in Dukes D was significantly higher (9/10, 90%) than that in Dukes A to C (16/34, 47.1%). Similar tendency was also observed in the expression of EGFR. Aneuploid case was observed in 12 of observed 25 (48%) cases without lymph node metastasis, while it was observed in 16 of 17 cases (94.1%) with lymph node metastasis and there was significant association between DNA ploidy pattern and lymph node metastasis (P< 0.01) and most of the cases (17/20, 85%) were aneuploidy in Dukes C and D. The results above suggest that the expression of c‐erbB‐2 protein or EGFR was associated with distant metastasis, while on the other hand DNA ploidy pattern was correlated with lymph node metastasis.