HER2 status in advanced gastric carcinoma: A retrospective multicentric analysis from Sicily.

According to the ToGA trial, HER2 has been shown to be predictive for the success of treatment with trastuzumab in advanced gastric cancer (AGC). A number of studies have analyzed HER-2/neu overexpression in gastric carcinoma and identified the rate of HER2 positivity to be markedly varied. To date, the prevalence of HER2 overexpression in Sicilian people with AGC is unknown. Therefore, in the present study, a retrospective immunohistochemical analysis of HER2 was performed in a cohort of 304 AGC samples that were obtained from the archives of 10 Sicilian anatomopathological diagnostic units in order to verify the positive rate of HER2-positive cases. Furthermore, the characteristics of his…