TY - JOUR T1 - Infrequent loss of heterozygosity of APC/MCC and DCC genes in gastric cancer showing DNA microsatellite instability. JF - Journal of Clinical Pathology JO - J Clin Pathol SP - 504 LP - 508 DO - 10.1136/jcp.52.7.504 VL - 52 IS - 7 AU - D C Fang AU - J R Jass AU - D X Wang AU - X D Zhou AU - Y H Luo AU - J Young Y1 - 1999/07/01 UR - http://jcp.bmj.com/content/52/7/504.abstract N2 - AIM: To investigate the role of DNA microsatellite instability (MSI) in gastric carcinogenesis by studying associations between MSI status, clinicopathological features, and loss of genetic loci. METHODS: Six microsatellite loci and loss of heterozygosity at APC, DCC, and MCC were analysed by polymerase chain reaction based methods in 53 cases of advanced gastric cancer. RESULTS: MSI was observed in 32.1% of gastric carcinomas (17/53) and 20% of foci of intestinal metaplasia (3/15). Seven gastric carcinomas (13.7%) were MSI-high (MSI-H) (three loci or more) and 10 (18.9%) were MSI-low (MSI-L) (one or two loci). The frequency of MSI-H was higher in intestinal (25.0%) than in diffuse carcinomas (3.7%) (p < 0.05). None of the MSI-H tumours showed loss of heterozygosity at APC, MCC, or DCC loci. CONCLUSIONS: MSI may have an important and early role in a subset of gastric cancers, particularly the intestinal type. The MSI-H subset of gastric cancer has features in common with its colorectal counterpart, whereas MSI-L and microsatellite stable cancers appear to develop through the loss of heterozygosity pathway. ER -