The purpose of this study was to clarify the relationship of the immunohistochemical expression of c-met, p53 and p21 with clinicopathological parameters and prognosis in gastric carcinomas. We analyzed specimens from 114 gastric cancer patients (median age 64 years, range: 33-86) who underwent gastrectomy with lymphadenectomy. Specimens were categorized according to the tumor differentiation, based on UICC, WHO, Laurén, Ming and Goseki classifications. Specimens were examined immunohistochemically with antibodies against c-met, p53 and p21. The expression was evaluated semiquantitatively and correlated with the clinicopathological parameters. The c-met staining pattern was positive in 73.7%. P53 and p21 were positive in 86.8 and 67.5%, respectively. No significant correlation between c-met or p21 expression and the clinicopathological parameters was seen. A significant increase of p53 expression was observed in stage pT3 and -4. The overexpression of c-met and p53 was significantly associated with a poor prognosis in the univariate survival analysis. In the multivariate analysis this impact was maintained for c-met. P21 proved to be a significant prognostic factor in the multivariate analysis. Our data suggest that the overexpression of c-met and p21 may represent independent prognostic factors in gastric carcinoma.

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