Expression Of E-cad In Patients With Colorectal Carcinoma Or Colorectal Adenoma And Its Clinical Significance

To investigate the expression of E - cad in patients with colorectal carcinoma or colorectal adenoma and the relationship between the ex-pression of E - cad and the biological behavior of colorectal carcino-ma.MethodsThe expression of E - cad was examined in 40 colorectal carcino-mas , 30 colorectal adenomas and 20 normal colorectal epithelium mu-cosas using an immunohistochemical technique.ResultsE - cad expression was well preserved in all normal colorectal ep-ithelium mucosas and in most of (96.7% , 29/30) colorectal adeno-mas. However, we found that only 52. 5% (21/40) of E - cad ex-pression was well preserved in colorectal carcinomas. The differenceof expression of E - cad between colorectal carcinomas and colorectal adenomas was significant ( P < 0. 01). In the 40 cases of colorectal carcinomas, the well expressed E - cad in Ducks A. B. C. D was 80% (4/5) , 75% ( 12/16) , 25% (2/8) , 27. 3% (3/11) respectively; differentiated grade: well 86. 7% ( 13/15) , moderately 45. 5% (5/ 11), poorly 21.2% (3/14) ; pathological type; tubular adenocarcino-ma 70% (14/20) , papillary adenocarcinoma 66. 7% (4/6) , mucin-ous adenocarcinoma 25% (2/8) , signet - ring cell carcinoma 16.7% (1/6). The reduced expression of E - cad was found to be signifi-cantly correlated with clinical Ducks classification (P <0.05) , tumor histopathologic differentiation grade ( P <0. 01) , and pathologic type (P<0.05).ConclusionThe difference of expression of E - cad between colorectal carci-nomas and colorectal adenomas was significant, which will help to dif-ferentiate colorectal carcinoma from colorectal adenoma. The reduced expression of E - cad was significantly correlated with clinical Ducks classification, tumor histopathologic differentiation grade, and patho-logic type, which demonstrated that loss or decreased expression and dysexpression of E - cad in colorectal carcinoma might be one of fac-tors for development of its invasive/metastasis potentials. Suggesting E - cad be looked as a new carcinoma marks. Measurements of E - cad expression are of value in evaluating the prognosis of colorectal carci-noma.