Prognostic and theranostic role of epidermal growth factor receptor expression in colorectal cancers

Abstract

Background: The outcome of Colorectal carcinoma (CRC) is highly influenced at diagnosis, presence of prognostic factors and the treatment modality. Evaluation of prognostic factors is predominantly done by pathological assessment of CRC resection specimens. This study was done to correlate the expression of EGFR in the colorectal carcinoma cases by immunohistochemistry which will facilitate the targeted therapy for patients suffering from this malignancy.

Methods: This retrospective study was done on H and E sections retrieved from the surgical pathology registers on 100 cases of CRC. The methodology we used here were specimen reception, collection of clinical data, tissue processing & making paraffin blocks, hematoxylin & Eosin staining, histological assessment, interpretation of data, selection of appropriate block for immuno histochemistry (IHC), IHC expression of EGFR in colonic carcinoma, correlation & analysis of the above parameters for the final outcome.

Results: The age of the patients ranged from 31 to 87 years and highest incidence was noted in the age group 41 to 51 years (32%). The most common histological variants we analysed in our study were adenocarcinoma (78%), mucinous (12%), signet ring (22%) and undifferentiated carcinoma (5%). We noted that the staining of EGFR (IHC) had taken up only in the cytoplasm of all cases.

Conclusion: The results of our study are in concordance with many studies in the literature. Even though EGFR is over expressed in various tumours it has only limited to no value in cancers of colon.