Immunohistochemical study of c‐erbB‐2 oncoprotein overexpression in human major salivary gland carcinoma: An indicator of aggressiveness

Abstract

In order to analyze the correlation between immunohistochemical positivity for c-erbB-2 oncoprotein and prognosis in patients with malignant salivary gland tumors, 59 cases of malignant tumors of the major salivary glands, including 35 parotid gland, 20 submaxillary gland and 4 sublingual gland tumors, were studied immunohistochemically using a polyclonal antibody against c-erbB-2 oncoprotein. Positive staining was observed in 13 (22%) of the 59 cases. Interestingly, positive results were obtained only in adenocarcinoma (6/20) and carcinoma in pleomorphic adenoma (7/15), and not in any other histological types such as adenoid cystic carcinoma, mucoepidermoid tumor, and squamous cell carcinoma. There was no correlation between the degree of differentiation of adenocarcinoma and c-erbB-2 positivity. Since the carcinoma in pleomorphic adenoma positive for c-erbB-2 oncoprotein was adenocarcinoma, adenocarcinoma and adenocarcinoma in pleomorphic adenoma were placed together (n = 33), and the presence or absence of c-erbB-2 oncoprotein in this group was examined for correlation with patients' survival and other clinicopathological features, including clinical stage, tumor size, surgical margins, and lymph node status. The c-erbB-2-positive tumors tended to be more advanced and larger than negative tumors. Similarly, c-erbB-2-positive tumors were difficult to resect completely, were associated with lymph node metastasis more frequently, and showed lower disease-free survival than negative cases (P less than .05). We conclude that immunohistochemical positivity for c-erbB-2 is an indicator of aggressiveness in both adenocarcinoma and adenocarcinoma in pleomorphic adenoma of the major salivary glands.

Adenoid cystic carcinoma: A retrospective clinical review

“…Staining was predominantly in tubular and cribriform areas, and was associated with shorter disease-free intervals, although the authors question the significance of the finding due to the small numbers of positive cases and the focal nature of the reactivity. Two other studies [14,15] looking at HER-2/neu overexpression in salivary neoplasms could not demonstrate any membrane staining at all among the ACCs subsets in their series. The first group [14] had 56 ACCs in their study, whereas the second study [15] had 8.…”

“…Two other studies [14,15] looking at HER-2/neu overexpression in salivary neoplasms could not demonstrate any membrane staining at all among the ACCs subsets in their series. The first group [14] had 56 ACCs in their study, whereas the second study [15] had 8. The reasons for these differences are not completely apparent at this time.…”

“…Some markers evaluated using immunohistochemistry include the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGF-R), HER-2, HER-3, p53, and proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) [10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. The resultant data for ACC have not been concordant.…”

HER2/neu Expression in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma Patients is not Significantly Elevated

“…The amplification of the HER2 gene has been demonstrated in many carcinomas of glandular origin, and its immunohistochemical expression has been proved to be closely associated with its amplification level (Sugano et al, 1992). The amplification and consequently over expression of the HER2 gene as well as its relationship with tumorogenesis was first reported by Schechler et al (1985) in neuroglioblastomas of rats .…”

“…The percentage of membranous and/or cytoplasmic stained tumor cells were calculated separately for each section. Tumors with more than 1% of tumor cells staining for HER2/neu were considered positive .Percentage of positivity ranged from 1% to 100% (Sugano et al, 1992;Albanell et al, 2001). All immune-stainig assessments were blinded to the clinical data.…”