PRACTICAL ONCOLOGY JOURNAL ›› 2015, Vol. 29 ›› Issue (4): 319-326.doi: 10.11904/j.issn.1002-3070.2015.04.007

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Clinical significance of Vimentin expression in patients with colorectal cancer

GAO Zhaohua1,2,ZHANG Hao1,SHI Gang1   

  1. 1.Department of Surgical Oncology and Breast Surgery,Liaoning Province Cancer Hospital and Institute,Liaoning 110042,China;
    2.Department of Breast Surgery,Dalian Medical University Clinical Oncology College
  • Received:2015-04-29 Online:2015-08-27 Published:2015-08-27

Abstract: Objective Vimentin is the major protein consisting of intermediate filaments in normal and neoplastic mesenchymal cells.It has been regarded as a marker of epithelial mesenchymal transition(EMT).However,little is known about colorectal cancer(CRC)with Vimentin expression as a marker of EMT and prognosis.Methods We investigated the expression of Vimentin in CRC tissues and determined the correlations between Vimentin expression patterns and clinicopathologic characteristics and prognosis in CRC.In total,189 patients diagnosed with CRC based on histopathological evaluation and those subjected to surgical resection at the Liaoning Province Cancer Hospital and Institute between 2000 and 2002 were examined.Immunohistochemical staining for Vimentin was performed for each specimen.Results Positive expression of Vimentin was significantly associated with the lymph node metastasis(pN stage,P=0.038),TNM stage(P=0.024).Survival analysis revealed that positive Vimentin expression was significantly related to poor prognosis(P=0.016).Multivariate analysis revealed that Vimentin expression was an independent prognostic factor for patient survival in colorectal cancer(P=0.026).Conclusion In Conclusion ,our data provide novel evidence for the clinical significance of Vimentin expression as potential predictive biomarkers for identifying patients with lymph node metastasis or poor prognosis in CRC.

Key words: Vimentin, Colorectal cancer, Epithelial-mesenchymal transition(EMT), Prognosis

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