Cell-type specificity of β-actin expression and its clinicopathological correlation in gastric adenocarcinoma

Table 1 Scoring system for β-actin immune-staining

Percent positivity of stained cells	IHC score	Staining intensity	IHC score
0%	0	None	0
< 25%	1	Weak	1
25%-50%	2	Moderate	2
50%-75%	3	Strong	3
75%-100%	4
Total IHC score = IHC score of percent positivity + IHC score of staining intensity
Average total IHC score = (Total IHC score of EC + Total IHC score of IC)/2

EC: Epithelial cells; IC: Inflammatory cells; IHC: Immunohistochemistry.

Table 2 Frequency of samples with respect to total immunohistochemistry score of β-actin n (%)

β-actin immune-positive cells in tissues		Total IHC score (n = 24)
		Low		Intermediate		High
		2	3	4	5	6	7
Epithelial cells	Normal tissue	15 (63)	7 (29)	2 (8)	0 (0)	0 (0)	0 (0)
	Tumor tissue	16 (67)	2 (8)	3 (13)	3 (13)	0 (0)	0 (0)
Inflammatory cells	Normal tissue	0 (0)	0 (0)	3 (13)	7 (29)	3 (13)	11 (46)
	Tumor tissue	0 (0)	0 (0)	1 (4)	0 (0)	4 (17)	19 (79)

IHC: Immunohistochemistry.

Table 3 Univariate analysis of β-actin immunostaining with clinicopathological parameters n (%)

Clinicopathological parameters	Groups		Epithelial cells (total IHC score)	Inflammatory cells (total IHC score)	Epithelial + Inflammatory cells (avg. total IHC score)
			P value	P value	P value
Age (yr)
	≤ 50	11 (42)	0.49331	0.27241	0.29411
	> 50	15 (58)
Sex
	Male	20 (77)	0.97211	0.27241	0.52751
	Female	6 (23)
Tumor grade
	WD	0 (0)	0.60892	0.01682	0.83932
	MD	4 (15)
	PD	14 (54)
	Mucinous	0 (0)
	SRC	8 (31)
Depth of invasion3
	T1	2 (8)	0.54462	0.66182	0.88042
	T2	2 (8)
	T3	13 (52)
	T4	8 (32)
Lymph Node status3
	N0	6 (24)	0.75102	0.62932	0.54262
	N1	8 (32)
	N2	8 (32)
	N3	3 (12)
Treatment Modality3
	Surgery	14 (56)	0.35421	0.81351	0.29101
	NACT + surgery	11 (44)

¹Mann Whitney Test;

²Kruskal Wallis Test;

³TNM staging and Treatment modality information was available for only 25 (out of 26) patients. P < 0.05 indicates statistically significant difference. IHC: Immunohistochemistry; MD: Moderately differentiated; PD: Poorly differentiated; SRC: Signet ring cell carcinoma.