Clinical and Pathological Value of MACC-1 Expression in Gastric Carcinoma ()
ABSTRACT
Background: Gastric adenocarcinoma is known to be a markedly
invasive disease with
high potential for metastasis. Hepatocyte growth factor (HGF)/HGF receptor (MET) signaling
pathway activation is an assumed mechanism of malignant transformation and
metastatic potential of tumors. Metastasis associated
with colon cancer-1 (MACC-1) has been identified as a key regulator of HGF/MET signaling. However,
its role in gastric cancer is not well understood. Aim of
this study is to assess the expression of MACC-1 in gastric cancer, its relation to
other clinical and pathologic parameters and its impact on progression free and
overall survival. Patient and
Methods: Evaluation of MACC-1 protein expression by immune-histochemistry was done on
paraffin-embedded tissues obtained from 46
patients with gastric cancer, where samples were taken from the tumor and
adjacent normal mucosa. Results: MACC-1 was predominantly localized in the cytoplasm or
membrane of the primary cancer cells. High MACC-1 expression was found in 63.1%
(29/46) of tumor samples, while MACC-1 expression was not detected in normal mucosa
(P < 0.01). Expression of MACC-1 was significantly associated with older age,
larger tumor size, deeper
tumor invasion, presence of lymph node metastasis, distant metastasis and advanced clinical stage (p < 0.05), while no relation was found with gender, tumor location or
histologic classification (p > 0.05). Progression
free and overall survival were significantly higher in patients with low MACC-1
expression compared to patients with high expression (Log Rank test, p = 0.02
and 0.04, consequently). Conclusion: Our study found that MACC-1 expression is strongly related to gastric cancer stage and both progression free and overall
survival, suggesting that MACC-1 promotes tumorigenesis and its expression may be
Share and Cite:
Hafez, A. , El-Gohary, T. and Abutaleb, F. (2019) Clinical and Pathological Value of MACC-1 Expression in Gastric Carcinoma.
Journal of Cancer Therapy,
10, 609-618. doi:
10.4236/jct.2019.107050.