Expression of PTEN protein in gastric cancer and its clinical significance

Objective:To explore the expression of PTEN protein in gastric cancer tissues and its clinical significances. Methods:The expression of PTEN protein was detected by immunohistochemistry in 53 cases of gastric cancer and 30 cases of chronic gastritis. Results:The positive rate of expression of PTEN protein in gastric cancer and chronic gastritis was 67.9% and 100.0% respectively. The positive rate of PTEN protein in gastric cancer was lower than that of chronic gastritis. There were significant difference between gastric cancer and chronic gastritis (P0.05). The positive rate of expression of PTEN protein in the high,middle and low differentiated grade of the carcinoma was 88.9%,70.6%,44.4%,respectively. The lower the differentiation of the gastric cancer,the lower the positive rate of PTEN protein was. There was significant differences between high and low differentiated grade of the cancer(P0.05). The positive rate of expression of PTEN protein was 55.2% in patients with lymph node metastasis,and the positive rate of expression of PTEN protein was 83.3% in patients without lymph node metastasis. There were significant differences(P0.05). Conclusion:There is a notable relevance between the low expression of PTEN protein and lymph node metastasis. PTEN has great values in the histopathologic grade of gastric cancer,diagnosis and lymph node metastasis. The low expression of PTEN could be used as a bad prognostic factor for gastric cancer.