Objectives: The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of myeloid cell leukemia-1 expression on overall survival in patients with metastatic gastric cancer. Methods: The files of 57 metastatic gastric cancer patients followed in our clinic were reviewed retrospectively. The Mcl-1 expression in tumor tissue was examined immunohistochemically. The Mcl-1 staining level was given in percentage (range: 0-100%). Correlations between the clinicopathological features , progression-free survival, overall survival and Mcl-1 were analyzed. Results: Of the 57 patients in our study, 41 were male and 16 were female. The median age was 66 years. The median Mcl-1 expression value was 70. The median progression-free survival was 7.6 months, median overall survival was 9.3 months. In the multivariate analysis, Mcl-1 expression ?70 and responsiveness to first-line therapy were found to be independent good prognostic factors for overall survival, respectively [17 vs 6 months (p<0.001); 16.3 vs 8.7 months (p=0.04)]. The Mcl-1 expression was higher in pure adenocarcinoma, well-differentiated carcinoma, and visceral organ metastasis (p=0.005, p=0.01, p=0.006, respectively). No relationship was found between Mcl-1 value and gender, age, smoking, performance score, Her-2/neu expression, tumor localization and omental involvement status. Conclusion: In our study, we found that the myeloid cell leukemia-1 expression and responsiveness to first-line therapy are good prognostic factors for overall survival in patients with metastatic gastric
Corresponding Author: Esma Turkmen Bekmez