Expression and significance of COX-2 protein in gastric adenocarcinoma

Objective To investigate the expression of COX-2 protein in gastric adenocarcinoma and atypital hyperplasia and normal gastric mucosa,and to analyze the correlation between the expression of COX-2 and clinical pathological features such as patient's gender,age,general type,tumor's size,lymph node metastasis and histological grading.Methods ABC immunohistochemical method was used to detect the expression of PINCH in paraffin block from 38 cases of normal gastric mucosa tissue,36 cases of atypical hyperplasia and 51 cases of gastric adenocarcinoma.The relationship between the expression of COX-2 and the patients clinical pathological features was analyzed.Results The expression of COX-2 protein in tumor-associated stromal cells of gastric adenocarcinoma was heterogeneous and the positive rate was 64.71%(33/51),which was significantly higher than that(38.89%,14/36) of atypical hyperplasia and that(36.84%,14/38) in normal gastric mucosa(P0.05).The positive rate of the lymph node metastasis group(84.38%,27/32) was significantly higher than that(31.58%,6/19) of non-lymph node metastasis group.Furthermore the positive rate of the expression in ulcer gastric carcinoma was 71.11%(32/45),while which in non-ulcer gastric carcinoma was 16.67%(1/6),there was a significant difference between the two kinds of gastric carcinomas(P0.05).But the expression COX-2 was not correlated with patients'gender,age,tumor size and histological grading(P0.05).Conclusion COX-2 may play an important role in the genesis,development and lymph node metastasis of gastric carcinoma.