-CATENIN EXPRESSIONS IN CHRONIC ATROPHIC GASTRITIS, HELICOBACTER PYLORI- ASSOCIATED CHRONIC GASTRITIS AND GASTRIC CANCER: AN IMMUNOHISTOCHEMICAL STUDY

Gastric cancer remains an important cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide and delayed diagnosis is the major cause of high mortality of patients. It is potentially curable if diagnosed at its early stage but unfortunately no useful biomarker has been identified until today. There are many studies which reported that increased -catenin expression was detected in gastric cancer but there are few studies on the -catenin expression in chronic gastritis, a precursor lesion of gastric cancer. In this study, -catenin was studied by using immunohistochemistry to determine whether alterations in its expression occurs prior to the development of gastric cancer and can be detected in chronic gastritis. A total of 148 samples were collected which consists of chronic atrophic gastritis (n = 55), Helicobacter pylori-associated chronic gastritis (n= 54) and gastric cancer (n = 39). The expression of -catenin was shown to be positive in 13/55 (23.6%) chronic atrophic gastritis, 11/54 (20.4%) Helicobacter pylori-associated chronic gastritis and 20/39 (51.3%) gastric cancer. -catenin expressions between both types of gastritis and gastric cancer were found to be statistically significant difference (P < 0.05). These suggested that there are possible alterations of -catenin expression at the precancerous stage. Further investigations are needed to ascertain and conclude that -catenin is a useful early diagnostic marker of gastric cancer.