The Study Of Ep-CAM Expression And Its Clinical Value In Colorectal Carcinoma

Background: Colorectal carcinoma (CRC) is a kind of malignant tumor that frequently occurred in gastrointestinal system and its morbidity has been rising in recent years in china. The main treatment to this disease is operation which is the only method for radical cure and only about 50-60% suffers can survival 5 years. At present, it is unknown about the genesis and development of CRC and a few patients was found in the disease early phrase, so that the relapse and metastasis would frequently occurred after operation. Apart from surgical treatment, there are also chemotherapy, radiotherapy and so on for CRC. However, these treatments, generally speaking, have gloomy curative effect and considerable adverse reactions. Immunotherapy for malignant tumors, which, in theory, targets to malignant cells and has low secondary effects, has been exploring for many years. It is very important to find a CRC tumor marker and explore its expresion and clinical value, so that we can make profound apprehension about CRC and elevate the diagnosis ability and therapeutic efficacy for CRC.Epithelial cell adhesion molecule(Ep-CAM)is a transmembrane glycoprotein including one peptide, which was negatively or weakly expressed on norm epithelial cells and frequently overexpressed or re-expressed in epithelial carcinomas. It was reported that the molecule mediates Ca2+-independent homophilic adhesions and may correlate with cellular proliferation, invasion, de-differentiation as well as migration. Now, many kinds of active passive and immunotherapies for several kinds of malignant tumor, which targeted to Ep-CAM ,have been explored.At present, It's still unknown about about the Ep-CAM quantitive relations between CRC tissue and adjacent mucosa as well as the relations between Ep-CAM level in CRC tissue and patients age, gender as well as tumor biological behaviors of CRC and there are a few studies the possibility to use Ep-CAM as a CRC tumor maker and a immunotherapy target all over the world.Objective: (1)Study EP-CAM expression in malignant tissue of large intestina. (2) Investigate the relations between Ep-CAM expression and CRC genesis and development. (3)Explore the relations between EP-CAM content in colorectal tumor tissue and patients age, gender as well as tumor biological behaviors. (4)Evaluate whether EP-CAM could be used as a tumor marker for CRC. (5) Compare the diognosis value of EP-CAM and C12 for CRC. (6)Evaluate whether EP-CAM could be used as a immunotherapy target for CRC.Methods: (1) 53 pieces of colorectal tumor tissues and the same amount of adjacent mucosa were gathered, then, 3 pieces of tissue micro-array sections were made and immunostained. (2) The integral optical density of Ep-CAM staining area (short for Ep-CAMIOD) was inspected by image analysis morphological system. (3)Before operation, 1ml non-anticoagulation serum was collected from every subject, then12 kinds of tumor markers in serum were detected by 12 tumor markers protein micro-array system. (4)The relations of Ep-CAMIOD between in colorectal tumor tissue and in adjacent mucosa groups were investigated. Malignant tissue group was divided into different sub-groups by patients age, gender and tumor biological behaviors, then, we analyze the relationships of Ep-CAMIOD among sub-groups. (5)We also researched the differences of Ep-CAMIOD between C12 positive and negative groups.Results: (1)The Ep-CAMIOD was significantly higher in CRC group than that in control group(P<0.01). (2)Ep-CAMIOD was not related to patients age, gender and tumor biological behaviors(P>0.05. (3)we found that C12 was positive in 50.9﹪ CRC patients. (4)There was no significant difference of Ep-CAMIOD between C12 positive and negtive groups(P>0.05).Conclusions: (1)Ep-CAM was involved in CRC genesis and development. (2)Ep-CAM expression in cancer tissues had no significant relationships with patients age, gender and tumor biological behaviors and Ep-CAM was a independent inflence factor for CRC genesis and development. (3)Ep-CAM could be used as a tumor marker for CRC, which could found C12 negtive patients, so that, if it was detected together with C12, CRC detection rate may be improved. (4)Ep-CAM may be used as a active or passive immunotherapy target CRC.