Cyclooxygenase-2 expression in gastric carcinoma and its relationship to clinicopathologic features

Objective To investigate the status of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) expression in gastric carcinorna and its reatinship to clinicopathologic features. Methods COX-2 expression in gastric mucosa was detected immunohistochemically. Results COX-2 expression was found to be positive only in 2 out of 22 cases of superficial gastritis without macroscopic lesions(9.1%). While COX-2 expression was detected in 22 out of 32 cases of gastric carcinoma, and the positive rate was 68.7%.Among these 32 cases of gastric carcinoma,the COX-2 expression rate was significantly higher in the cases with lymph node involvement(80.9%) than those without lymph node involvement(45.4%). However, there was no significant difference between early gastric carcinoma and advanced gastric carcinoma ,as well as between the cases with serosa invasion and those without serosa invasion in COX-2 expression. In terms of Pathologic type of gastric carcinoma, COX-2 expression was higher in low-differentiated adenocarcinoma(81.8%) than well-differentiated adenocarcinoma (60.0%) and mucous carcinoma(63.4%), but there was no statistical difference among them. Conclusion COX-2 is overexpressed in gastric carcinoma tissues,and is related to lymphatic metastasis.