Yonago Acta medica 2007;50:9–15
Rho-ROCK Expression Predicts the Prognosis in Patients with T3/T4 Gastric Cancer
Kenjiro Taniguchi, Shunichi Tsujitani, Naruo Tokuyasu, Takuji Naka, Shigeru Tatebe, Akira Kondo and Masahide Ikeguchi
Division of Surgical Oncology, Department of Surgery, School of Medicine, Tottori University Faculty of Medicine, Yonago 683-8504 Japan
A small GTPase Rho protein and an effector ROCK have significant roles in cancer adhsion, metastasis, invasion, angiogenesis and cell mortality. We investigated the expressions of RhoA protein and ROCK-1 protein in 100 patients with macroscopically T3/T4 gastric cancer immunohistochemically. The expression of RhoA was detected in gastric cancer specimens from 39 patients and that of ROCK-1 in specimens from 30 patients. The clinicopathological characteristics of 21 tumors with co-expression of RhoA and ROCK-1 proteins (Rho/ROCK ON) were compared with those of the 79 remaining tumors (Rho/ROCK OFF). The percentage of lymph node metastasis positive cases in the Rho/ROCK ON group (81%) was higher than that in the Rho/ROCK OFF group (66%), but the difference was not significant (P=0.183). However, the prognosis of the 21 patients with Rho/ROCK ON was significantly poorer than that of the 79 with Rho/ROCK OFF (P=0.006). Our results indicate that the evaluation of the protein expression of RhoA and ROCK-1 is useful for predicting the prognosis in patients with T3/T4 gastric cancer.
Key words: gastric carcinoma; prognosis; RhoA; ROCK-1
