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Rectal cancer remains a significant clinical challenge with demand for conclusive biomarkers, essential in prognostication and therapy monitoring of neoadjuvant and adjuvant treatment strategies.
The aim of the study was to evaluate AXL and cellular mesenchymal-epithelial transition factor (C-MET) biomarkers for cancer stem cells and to correlate them with clinicopathological characteristics and patient outcome data with respect to neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy.
Serum levels of soluble surface markers AXL and C-MET were retrospectively analyzed in 164 rectal cancer patients with additional immunofluorescent analyses of their primary tumor tissues.
Kaplan-Meier analysis confirmed the prognostic significance of Union for International Cancer Control stages, but with no significant correlation between investigated markers with patient age, gender, or tumor stage. In contrast, tumor tissues demonstrated stage-dependently increased marker expression. While AXL was detected at low levels, C-MET exhibited a bimodal distribution, with elevated levels seen in most patients, particularly post-neoadjuvant therapy and non-significantly in the subgroup with poorer response to neoadjuvant therapy (p=0.074).
AXL serum levels in the rectal cancer cohort were significantly different from healthy subjects but did not correlate with tumor stage or survival during and after neoadjuvant/adjuvant therapy. Soluble C-MET levels in the blood, influenced by neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy, may serve as a predictive marker for treatment response.
CD133 and AXL have been described as cancer stem cell markers, and c-MYC as a key regulatory cellular mechanism in colorectal cancer (CRC).
Evaluate the prognostic role of the biomarkers CD133, AXL and c-MYC and their association with clinicopathologic characteristics in colorectal adenocarcinomas and adenomas.
A total of 156 patients with UICC stage I-IV adenocarcinomas (n=122) and adenomas (n=34) were analyzed. Tissue microarrays (TMA) from primary tumors and polyps for CD133, c-MYC and AXL expression were performed and analyzed for their significance with clinicopathologic characteristics.
Poorly differentiated adenocarcinomas and disease progression were independent risk factors for poor overall survival. The median overall survival time was 30 months. Positive CD133 expression (35.9% of all cases), particularly of right-sided CRCs (44.8% of the CD133+ cases), was negatively correlated with death in the univariate analysis, which did not reach significance in the multivariate analysis. c-MYC (15.4% of all cases) was predominantly expressed in advanced-stage patients with distant (non-pulmonary/non-hepatic) metastasis. AXL expression was found only occasionally, and predominantly dominated in adenomas, with less penetrance in high-grade dysplasia.
CD133 expression was not associated with inferior overall survival in CRC. While AXL showed inconclusive results, c-MYC expression in primary CRCs was associated with distant metastasis.
Desenvolvido por Surya MKT