Expression of Myeloid Cell Leukemia-1 (Mcl-1) Predicts the Survival of Patients with Metastatic Gastric Cancer
Objectives: The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of myeloid cell leukemia-1 expression on overall survival in metastatic gastric cancer patients.
Methods: The files of 57 metastatic gastric cancer patients who were followed up in our clinic were reviewed retrospectively. The expression of Mcl-1 in the tumor tissue was immunohistochemically examined. The level of Mcl-1 staining was given in percentage (range: 0-100%). The correlation between the clinicopathological characteristics, progressionfree survival, overall survival and Mcl-1 was analyzed.
Results: Of the 57 patients in our study, 41 were male and 16 were female. The median age was 66 years. The median Mcl-1 expression value was 70. Median progression-free survival was 7.6 months, median overall survival was 9.3 months. In the multivariate analysis, Mcl-1 expression ≤70 and responsiveness to first line therapy were found to be independent good prognostic factors for overall survival, respectively [17 vs 6 months (p<0.001); 16.3 vs 8.7 months (p=0.04)]. The expression of Mcl-1 was higher in pure adenocarcinoma, well-differentiated carcinoma and visceral organ metastasis (p=0.005, p=0.01, p=0.006, respectively). No relationship was found between Mcl-1 value and gender, age, smoking, performance score, Her-2/neu expression, tumor localization and omental involment status.
Conclusion: In our study, we found that the myeloid cell leukemia-1 expression and responsiveness to first line therapy are good prognostic factors in terms of overall survival at metastatic gastric cancer patients.
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