Kayikcioglu E, Yüceer RO, Cetin B, Yüceer K, Karahan N. Prognostic value of claudin 18.2 expression in gastric adenocarcinoma. World J Gastrointest Oncol 2023; 15(2): 343-351 [PMID: 36908327 DOI: 10.4251/wjgo.v15.i2.343]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Erkan Kayikcioglu, MD, Assistant Professor, Department of Medical Oncology, Suleyman Demirel University, Cunur, Suleyman Demirel Caddesi, Isparta 32260, Turkey. drkayikcioglu@yahoo.com
Research Domain of This Article
Oncology
Article-Type of This Article
Retrospective Cohort Study
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Gastrointest Oncol. Feb 15, 2023; 15(2): 343-351 Published online Feb 15, 2023. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.v15.i2.343
Prognostic value of claudin 18.2 expression in gastric adenocarcinoma
Erkan Kayikcioglu, Ramazan Oğuz Yüceer, Bulent Cetin, Kamuran Yüceer, Nermin Karahan
Erkan Kayikcioglu, Department of Medical Oncology, Suleyman Demirel University, Isparta 32260, Turkey
Ramazan Oğuz Yüceer, Department of Pathology, Isparta City Hospital, Isparta 32360, Turkey
Bulent Cetin, Kamuran Yüceer, Department of Internal Medicine, Suleyman Demirel University, Faculty of Medicine, Isparta 32360, Turkey
Nermin Karahan, Department of Pathology, Suleyman Demirel University, Isparta 32360, Turkey
Author contributions: Kayikcioglu E contributed to conceptualization; Yüceer RO, Kayikcioglu E, Karahan N, and Cetin B contributed to formal analysis and investigation; Kayikcioglu E and Cetin B contributed to supervision; Kayikcioglu E, Yüceer RO, and Yüceer K contributed to resources; Yüceer K contributed to visualization; Kayikcioglu E, Yüceer RO, Yüceer K, Karahan N, and Cetin B contributed to writing and original draft preparation; Kayikcioglu E, Karahan N, and Cetin B contributed to reviewing and editing.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee of Suleyman Demirel University (Approval No. 01/04/2022-102).
Informed consent statement: The informed consent was obtained from the patients.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement—checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement—checklist of items.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Erkan Kayikcioglu, MD, Assistant Professor, Department of Medical Oncology, Suleyman Demirel University, Cunur, Suleyman Demirel Caddesi, Isparta 32260, Turkey. drkayikcioglu@yahoo.com
Received: October 29, 2022 Peer-review started: October 29, 2022 First decision: December 30, 2022 Revised: January 2, 2023 Accepted: January 23, 2023 Article in press: January 23, 2023 Published online: February 15, 2023 Processing time: 108 Days and 13.8 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Claudin 18.2 (CLDN18.2) is a cell surface protein expressed by gastric cancer cells. The monoclonal antibody zolbetuximab binds CLDN18.2-positive cancer cells and causes cancer cell death. A few studies researched the prognostic effect of CLDN18.2 expression in metastatic gastric adenocarcinoma.
AIM
To identify the prognostic value of CLDN18.2 expression in patients with metastatic gastric adenocarcinoma.
METHODS
This study was conducted with 65 patients over the age of 18 who were diagnosed with metastatic gastric adenocarcinoma. We investigated the effect of CLDN18.2 expression on clinicopathological characteristics (age, sex, histological grade, Lauren classification, family history, metastatic site, HER2 expression) and prognosis for patients with metastatic gastric adenocarcinoma.
RESULTS
CLDN18.2 expression was positive in 73.8% (48) of the patients. During the median 17.7-mo follow-up period, 89.2% (58) of the patients died. Median progression-free survival and overall survival (OS) were 6 mo (95% confidence interval: 1.6-10.4) and 12 mo (95% confidence interval: 7.5-16.5). There was no statistically significant correlation between CLDN18.2 expression and clinicopathological characteristics of the patients. In univariate and multivariate Cox regression analysis, there was no correlation between clinicopathological characteristics of patients and progression-free survival or OS.
CONCLUSION
CLDN18.2 expression was quite high in patients with gastric adenocarcinoma, identifying the proportion of the patients in whom zolbetuximab would be efficacious. There is no statistically significant correlation with clinicopathological characteristics and OS. CLDN18.2 is not a prognostic marker in patients with gastric adenocarcinoma, although it is predictive.
Core Tip: Zolbetuximab is a new antibody drug targeting the cell surface protein claudin 18.2 (CLDN18.2) expressed by gastric cancer cells. CLDN18.2 expression, identifying the patient population who are susceptible to zolbetuximab, is discordant in different studies. The present study aimed to research the expression ratio of CLDN18.2 and its prognostic value for overall survival in patients with gastric adenocarcinoma in a single center located in Turkey.
