[Growth factors as biological markers of malignancy]

The expressions of epidermal growth factor (EGF), EGF receptor, transforming growth factor (TGF) alpha and c-Ha-ras p21 in human gastric carcinomas were studied immunohistochemically. Any of these four marker proteins from gastric tumor cells was closely correlated with the depth of tumor invasion. The incidences of cases with EGF or synchronous expression of TGF alpha and c-Ha-ras in metastatic tumors were significantly higher than those in primary tumors (p less than 0.05 or p less than 0.01). Patients with synchronous expression of EGF and its receptor or TGF alpha and ras p21 had a far poorer prognosis than those without such synchronous expression. These findings strongly suggest that the EGF-related growth factors, EGF-receptor and ras p21 mutually play an important role in tumor progression and could be useful as potential metastatic and/or prognostic markers for gastric carcinoma.