Lack of relationship between EGFR-1 immunohistochemical expression and prognosis in a multicentre clinical trial of 93 patients with advanced primary ovarian epithelial cancer (GINECO group)

Epidermal growth factor receptor 1 (EGFR-1) overexpression is usually described as linked with a worse prognosis in a variety of tumours of epithelial origin. However, its role in ovarian cancer is still controversial. The aim of the present study was to analyse the prognostic impact of EGFR-1 in a retrospective series of 93 stage III-IV primary ovarian epithelial tumours. All patients, enrolled in a multicentre GINECO prospective clinical trial, were treated with the same platinum-based combination chemotherapy, and were followed up with a median of 69 months. Epidermal growth factor receptor 1 plasma membrane expression, assessed by immunohistochemistry on paraffin-embedded tissues, was correlated with clinical parameters as well as immunohistochemical expression results of HER-2 (c-erbB-2), BAX, BCL-2, p53 and anti-Ki-67, previously studied in the same series of patients. Positive immunostaining for EGFR-1 was seen in 31 of the 93 analysed cases (33%). No correlation was found between EGFR-1 expression and clinical parameters. No correlation was found between EGFR-1 expression and other biological markers, except for HER-2, which was limit for significance. Indeed, among the EGFR-1-negative cases, 10.3% expressed HER-2, whereas the HER-2-expressing tumours accounted for 27.6% of EGFR-1-positive cases (P=0.06). Epidermal growth factor receptor 1 overexpression had no prognostic impact on both overall and progression-free survival through univariate and multivariate analyses. The potential effect of EGFR-1 and HER-2 co-expression on targeted therapy against EGFR-1 and/or HER-2 molecules has to be further analysed.