cerbB-2 expression and significance in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the biological significance of cerbB-2 expression in nasopharyngeal carcinoma. METHODS: The expression of cerbB-2 was detected in 60 nasopharyngeal carcinoma tissues by the SP-supervisionTM immunohistochemical method. RESULT: cerbB-2 protein was detectable in 58.3% of all 60 nasopharyngeal carcinoma tissues, the positive ratio of cerbB-2 expression in patients with age≤40 years was 78.3%,and the positive ratio of cerbB-2 expression in patients with the lymth nodes stage of N2 and N3 was 71.0%, and these illustrated the positive ratio and the level of the expression of cerbB-2 were closely related to age, the size and opsition of local metastasised lymph nodes (P0.05), but not to gender,clinical stages,distant metastasis(P0.05). CONCLUSION: There is high expression of cerbB-2 in nasopharyngeal carcinoma tissues,which might be an important event in the pathogenesis and progression of nasopharyngeal carcinoma.