Avoranta ST, Korkeila EA, Syrjänen KJ, Pyrhönen SO, Sundström JTT. Lack of CD44 variant 6 expression in rectal cancer invasive front associates with early recurrence. World J Gastroenterol 2012; 18(33): 4549-4556 [PMID: 22969228 DOI: 10.3748/wjg.v18.i33.4549]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Tuulia Avoranta, MD, Department of Oncology and Radiotherapy, University of Turku and Turku University Hospital, Hämeentie 11, FIN-20521 Turku, Finland. stavor@utu.fi
Article-Type of This Article
Brief Article
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Gastroenterol. Sep 7, 2012; 18(33): 4549-4556 Published online Sep 7, 2012. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v18.i33.4549
Lack of CD44 variant 6 expression in rectal cancer invasive front associates with early recurrence
Suvi Tuulia Avoranta, Eija Annika Korkeila, Kari Juhani Syrjänen, Seppo Olavi Pyrhönen, Jari Toivo Tapio Sundström
Suvi Tuulia Avoranta, Eija Annika Korkeila, Kari Juhani Syrjänen, Seppo Olavi Pyrhönen, Department of Oncology and Radiotherapy, University of Turku and Turku University Hospital, FIN-20521 Turku, Finland
Jari Toivo Tapio Sundström, Department of Pathology, University of Turku and Turku University Hospital, FIN-20520 Turku, Finland
Author contributions: All authors designed the research; Avoranta ST and Korkeila EA collected the clinicopathological data; Avoranta ST and Sundström JTT analyzed the immunohistochemical staining; Avoranta ST and Syrjänen KJ performed the statistical work; Avoranta ST wrote the paper; Korkeila EA, Syrjänen KJ, Pyrhönen SO and Sundström JTT gave comments and suggested revisions.
Supported by The Special Government Funding (EVO) allocated to Turku University Hospital; the Turku University Foundation, to Avoranta ST; the Cancer Society of South-Western Finland, to Sundström JTT; and the Finnish Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology, to Korkeila EA
Correspondence to: Tuulia Avoranta, MD, Department of Oncology and Radiotherapy, University of Turku and Turku University Hospital, Hämeentie 11, FIN-20521 Turku, Finland. stavor@utu.fi
Telephone: +35-82-3131834 Fax: +35-82-3132809
Received: November 21, 2011 Revised: March 29, 2012 Accepted: May 12, 2012 Published online: September 7, 2012
Abstract
AIM: To investigate the prognostic value of CD44 variant 6 (CD44v6), a membranous adhesion molecule, in rectal cancer.
METHODS: Altogether, 210 rectal cancer samples from 214 patients treated with short-course radiotherapy (RT, n = 90), long-course (chemo) RT (n = 53) or surgery alone (n = 71) were studied with immunohistochemistry for CD44v6. The extent and intensity of membranous and cytoplasmic CD44v6 staining, and the intratumoral membranous staining pattern, were analyzed.
RESULTS: Membranous CD44v6 expression was seen in 84% and cytoplasmic expression in 81% of the cases. In 59% of the tumors with membranous CD44v6 expression, the staining pattern in the invasive front was determined as “front-positive” and in 41% as “front-negative”. The latter pattern was associated with narrower circumferential margin (P = 0.01), infiltrative growth pattern (P < 0.001), and shorter disease-free survival in univariate survival analysis (P = 0.022) when compared to the “front-positive” tumors.
CONCLUSION: The lack of membranous CD44v6 in the rectal cancer invasive front could be used as a method to identify patients at increased risk for recurrent disease.
