Karol Kajo, Lukáš Plank
Gastric carcinoma is one of the most common malignant tumors and remains the second leading cause of cancer mortality in the world. Most of the patients with the disease are diagnosed when the tumor is at advanced unresectable stage and therefore for long time the appropriate systemic chemotherapy represented the only possible treatment modality. In 3.8 % to 22.6 % cases of gastric carcinoma an overexpression of the HER2 protein and/or amplification of the HER2 gene have been identified and so one of the new therapeutic options for the patients is represented by a targeted therapy using anti HER2 receptor monoclonal antibody. The presented article reviews the actual state of knowledge on the importance of an exact HER2 status determination and comments on differences of HER2 expression in individual gastric carcinoma types and on differences of HER2 status detection in breast versus gastric carcinomas. Finally, the information about availability of these examinations within the National program of HER2 detection in the breast and gastric cancer in the Slovak Republic is summarized.