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Received Oct 30, 2017; Revised Feb 3, 2018; Accepted Feb 14, 2018
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
1. Introduction
Gastroesophageal cancer is a major health problem worldwide and is among the leading causes of cancer deaths globally [1]. Although breast, colon, prostate, and lung cancers are more commonly diagnosed cancers, cancers involving the oesophagus and stomach contribute significantly to cancer mortality [1, 2]. Generally, it appears that a small fraction of gastric and oesophageal cancer patients respond to the current management modalities such as surgery, chemotherapy, or radiotherapy. This suggests the need to explore other possible and effective approaches to managing these cancer patients [3, 4]. Increasing evidence suggests an improved prognosis in these cancers when therapy is targeted towards the biomarker, human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER-2) [5]. HER-2, a transmembrane tyrosine kinase, has been shown to have therapeutic and thus prognostic implications in gastric [6, 7] and oesophageal [8] cancers. A significant survival advantage has been identified in patients who overexpress HER-2. It has also been shown that gastric and oesophageal adenocarcinoma patients who overexpress HER-2 benefit from trastuzumab (a HER-2 specific monoclonal antibody), when combined with the traditional treatment regimen [9–11]. It is imperative that patients with these tumours that overexpress HER-2 are selected to benefit from HER-2-targeted therapy.
Presently, routine testing for HER-2 protein overexpression in gastric or oesophageal adenocarcinoma does not occur in Ghana. This means that patients with these tumours that overexpress HER-2 protein are not identified and thus do not benefit from HER-2-targeted therapy. In this study, we explored the local pattern of adenocarcinoma of the stomach and oesophagus and its association with HER-2 overexpression within a period of five years using archived 10% buffered, formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue blocks.
2. Materials and Methods
2.1. Data Collection
This was a retrospective study involving archived 10% buffered, formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissues with well-documented records in the books of Pathology Department, Korle Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH), Ghana, from 2008 to 2012. KBTH is tertiary care hospital in Ghana where majority of cases within the country and some cases from neighbouring west African countries are referred. All specimens...