Helicobacter pylori infection and risk of gastric cancer in Korea; Correlation with atrophic gastritis and intestinal metaplasia

Background.Ailelic loss on chromosome 18q is involved in the progression of gastric carcinoma.Recently, DPC4 (deleted in pancreatic carcinoma, locus 4), a candidate tumor suppressor gene, has been localized at 18q21.Inactivated of DPC4 gene was reported in pancreatic carcinomas, coloretal carcinomas, and prostatic carcinomas.Methods.We tested for DPC4 gene mutations and aUelic status at 18q21 using a modified 'cold SSCP' met-hod in 48 primary gastric carcinoma and correlated the findings with various clinicopathologic characteristics of the patients.Results.The frequency of mutations in primary gastric cancer was 27.1% (13/48).Mutation of exon 1,8 were 2,4 cases and mutation of exon 10 mutation were 7 cases respectively.DNA sequencing of 13 cases with DPC4 mutations identified six cases with substitution, four cases with deletion, and two cases with insertion.Tumors located in the lower third of the stomach had a significantly higher frequency of DPC4 mutations ( 11/31, 35.4%) compared with tumors located in the middle or lower ( 2/17, 11.7%) thirds of the stomach.No significant difference was observed in the frequency of DPC4 mutations in terms of other various clinicopathologic characteristics.Conclusions.These findings suggest that DPC4 mutations may play a significant role in the establishment and progression of the primary gastric cancer and that different mechanisms may play a role in the pathogenesis of stomach cancer according to the location of tumors in the stomach.