ABSTRACT
Background and purpose:The recurrence and metastasis of gastric cancer seriously affect survival in patients.SOX gene as a regulatory factor of the classical Wnt pathway, may play an important role in the process. This study was to explore the expression of stem cell marker SOX-2 and β-catenin in gastric cancer and to analyze the relationship with recurrence and metastasis after operation.Methods:Immunohistochemistry was used to detect the expression of SOX-2 and β-catenin in 71 tumor samples from 71 cases after surgery for gastric cancer. The correlation between SOX-2 and β-catenin expression and the clinicopathological characteristics of gastric cancer and disease-free survival was analyzed.Results:The SOX-2 protein expression was associated with metastasis, lymph node inifltration or differentiation (P=0.011,P=0.036,P=0.034) in the 71 gastric cancer, but not with gender, age or T stage. β-catenin expression was correlated with metastasis, lymph node invasion or T stage (P=0.025,P=0.014,P=0.026), but was not related to differentiation, gender or age. The survival analysis showed that SOX-2 and β-catenin expression was closely associated with prognosis of patients, and metastatic rate in positive expression was higher than that in negative expression.Conclusion:The expression of SOX-2 and β-catenin is associated with the development, recurrence, metastasis of gastric cancer and may be used as a useful prognostic parameter to predict overall survival.