The Evaluation of the Biological Aggressiveness of Endocrine Cell Carcinoma of the Stomach with Proliferating Cell Nuclear Antigen and Ki-67 Labeling Index

Shinnosuke Tanaka, Hisaharu Mori, Hiroshi Nakamura, Akira Tomita, Toshimi Umeno, Seiyo Ikeda, Masahiro Kikuchi*

The First Department of Surgery and The First Department of Pathology*, School of Medicine, Fukuoka University

We investigated the biological aggressiveness of endocrine cell carcinoma (ECC) (small cell carcinoma) of the stomach, which clinically had a poor prognosis, from the point of view of the cell proliferation activity using the PCNA Labeling Index and the MIB-1 Labeling Index. The PCNA Labeling Index of the ECCs (22 cases) was 56.3% on average, while the MIB-1 Labeling Index was 53.9% on average. These rates were significantly higher than either the PCNA Labeling Index (average 40.3%) or the MIB-1 Labeling Index (average29.9%) of oridinary tubular adenocarcinomas examined as control cases (20 cases) (p<0.01). Moreover, in ECCs (6 cases) accompanied by ordinary tubular adenocarcinoma, the PCNA Labeling Index (average 53.8%) and MIB-1 Labeling Index (average 56.2%) in the ECC component were significantly higher than the PCNA Labeling Index (average 42.3%) and the MIB-1 Labeling Index (average 41.9%) in the ordinary tubular adenocarcinoma component in the same tumor (p<0.05). Consequently, we consider ECC to be more aggressive than ordinary tubular adenocarcinoma on the basis of its cell proliferation activity.

Key words
endocrine cell carcinoma of the stomach, small cell carcinoma of the stomach, proliferating cell nuclear antigen, MIB-1, biological behavior

Reprint requests
Shinnosuke Tanaka First Department of Surgery, School of Medicine, Fukuoka University
7-45-1 Nanakuma, Johnan-ku, Fukuoka, 814-80 JAPAN

Accepted
November 15, 1995

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