This study was designed to investigate the expression of the intracellular and extracellular domains of EGFR and of the activated receptor as well as its ligands EGF and TGFα in a large series of meningiomas with long follow-up data, and investigate if there exists an association between antibody expression and clinical and histological data.
Meningiomas express various hormonal and growth factor receptors, such as progesterone, estrogen, somatostatin, transforming growth factor alpha (TGF-alpha) and epidermal growth factor (EGF) receptors, which may be related to their biological behavior and response to treatment.
Positive correlations between proliferation and proto-oncogene/growth factor expression were found for c-myc in atypical/malignant tumors and for epidermal growth factor in fibroblastic meningiomas.
A consecutive series of six meningiomas and one meningioma/neurofibroma derived from a patient with neurofibromatosis type 2 was investigated and it was found that the growth of all seven tumours in response to mitotic stimuli (fetal bovine serum or epidermal growth factor) is strongly inhibited by IFN-alpha.