Cancer metastasis and recurrence from the standpoint of amplification and expression of oncogenes in human malignant tumors

We investigated the amplification and expression of oncogenes in human malignant tumors. The survival rates of patients with c-erbB, c-erbB-2, and int-2 oncogene amplification/expression were significantly lower than those of the patients without gene amplification/expression. Many distant organ metastases were observed in esophageal cancer patients with int-2 amplification, in gastric cancer patients with c-erbB-2 over-expression, and in breast cancer patients with int-2 and c-erbB-2 amplification. These results suggest that the amplification/expression of these oncogenes may serve as good markers for determining the biological malignancy of cancers.