Caspases as a biomarker - similar or a different gastric cancer biology

<b>Introduction:</b> Caspases play a key role in apoptosis, the disruption of which can lead to the proliferation of abnormal cell clones and tumor growth. Caspases' role as potential biomarkers has been confirmed in relation to many types of cancer.<b>Aim:</b> In this study, the authors focused on the European population with an average incidence of gastric cancer to investigatethe importance of caspases in gastric cancer.<b>Material and methods:</b> For this purpose, we evaluated the expression of representative caspases - an effector caspase-3 as well as caspase-8 and -9 initiating the apoptosis process, studying the cases of 53 patients who had been operated on in the Department of General Surgery and Surgical Oncology from 2010 to 2014. Also, we selected patients who had not received the neoadjuvant chemotherapy. An attempt was then made to identify correlations between caspase expression and clinical or pathological features of gastric cancers. The expression was evaluated by immunohistochemical reactions using monoclonal antibodies. Statistical analysis was performed, including parametric and nonparametric tests, like Kruskal-Wallis and Spearman's rho.<b>Results:</b> The study did not confirm a significant role of caspases in gastric cancer. We found no correlation with overall survival, tumor location, clinical stage, or its grade of histopathological malignancy as defined by World Health Organization (WHO). The possibility of using the selected caspases as biomarkers was not confirmed.<b>Discussion:</b> Our observations are significantly different from those described in the literature. This may indicate differences in tumour biology in different patient populations.<b>Conclusions:</b> In the study performed by the authors of this paper, no correlation of caspase-3, -8, and -9 IRS score with clinicopathological factors and long-term survival was found to be statistically significant.