THE STUDY OF CD44 IN HUMAN GASTRIC CARCINOMAS

Aim: To study the correlation of rhe CD44 gene splice and abnormal expression with theclinical - pathologic changes of gastric carcinoma. Methods: We detected the expressi0n of CD44VmRNAin the normal gastric mucosa, cancer and it's adjacent tissues by RT - PCR. ResultS: CD44vmRNA wasespressed in l6 of 20 gastric cancers, in 5 of 20 the adjacent tissues but was n0t expressed in a1l the 2O nor-mal mucosa specimens; and l5 out of 16 had lymph node metastasis but 1 out 0f 4 had no lymph nodemetastasis, all the five cases investigated showed distant metastasis (p 0,05). A1l the 6O gastric mu-cosa, gastric cancer and it's adjacent tissue presented the standard CD44smRNA. There were differencesin the expression between two types of gastric mucosa (p O.05), 2 out of 5 were well - differentiatedor intestinal type gastric cancers, 14 out of 15 were Poorly - differentiated 0r diffuse type cancers. Conclu-sion: The abnormal expression of CD44v is of universal significance in gastric cancer which might by mark-ers of gastric cancer and the metastasis.