| Abstract: | Background: Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in Brunei Darussalam, accounting for almost20% of the total. The epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) is a member of the erbB family of tyrosine kinasereceptor proteins, which includes c-erbb2(HER2/neu), erb-B3, and erb-B4. EGFR overexpression is found in athird of all epithelial cancers, often associated with a poor prognosis. Materials and Methods: Protein expressionof EGFR in 27 cases of lung cancer tissue samples and 9 cases of normal lung tissue samples was evaluated usingan immunohistochemical approach. Results: The results demonstrated significant increase and overexpressionof EGFR in Bruneian lung cancer tissue samples in comparison to normal lung tissue. However, there was nosignificant relationship between clinicopathologic variables (age and sex) of patients and EGFR protein expression.Conclusions: EGFR is overexpressed in Bruneian lung cancer patient tissue samples in comparison to normallung tissue samples. This may indicate that EGFR protein over expression plays an important role in the genesisof this type of cancer in Brunei Darussalam. |
