Introduction: Gall Bladder Carcinoma (GBC) is a diagnostic and a therapeutic challenge. Although it is increasing, chronic cholecystitis remains the most worldwide gall bladder lesions, harbouring many epithelial changes that may end in carcinoma.

Aim: To investigate the expression of HER2-neu and Ki-67 in malignant and non-malignant gall bladder lesions, and to evaluate its correlation with survival time.

Materials and Methods: In this retrospective as well prospective study include total of 154 cases of gall bladder in which 85 cases of malignant lesions and 47 cases of premalignant and premalignant like lesion  (including dysplasia , metaplasia and xanthogranulomatous cholecystitis) along with 22 cases of chronic cholecystitis as control. The blocks were collected from the Department of Pathology of KGMU, Lucknow.  Immunohistochemical staining results of HER2-neu and Ki-67 were analysed and correlated by Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 15 and Chi-square test and for survival time interpretation use Kaplan-Meier survival curve and Log- rank test.

Results:  Positive HER2-neu expression (+2, +3) was detected in 47.5% (19/40) of malignant cases and 12.5% (1/8) of dyspastic group, at the same time it was completely absent in the metaplastic and cholecystitis cases. Similarly Ki-67 Li expression was observed to be <10% in 75.3% of malignant and all the cases in premalignant and control groups. In malignant group, a total of 14 (16.5%) patients had Ki-67 Li expression in range 10-25% and remaining 7 (8.2%) had Ki-67 Li expression >25%.

Conclusion: HER2-neu, and Ki-67 are overexpressed in GBC cases compared with control and dysplastic group, these can be use as new therapeutic targetd agent in GBC.

Keywords:  Gall bladder cancer, Her2neu expression,  Ki-67, Chronic cholecystitis.

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Dr Ajay Kr. Singh

Professor, Department of Pathology, King George’s Medical University (KGMU), Lucknow, UP, India