No abstract

Serum carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) is most commonly used as a prognostic biomarker for evaluating curatively resected colorectal cancer (CRC) patients, but it has a low sensitivity and specificity. The aim of this study was to evaluate potential genetic markers in CRC patients using membrane array. Fifty CRC patients were enrolled and mRNA expression in their tissues were analyzed using membrane array analysis. Seven genes were analyzed in this study, including ATP2A2, GLUT1, MMP13, MAGE-A2, MAGE-A7, MAGE-A8, and MAGE-A12. Correlations between the results of the membrane array and the clinicopathological features of these CRC patients were then evaluated. The results show that the overexpression of any three or four of these seven genes is correlated with tumor invasion depth, lymphatic invasion, advanced stage, and postoperative recurrence (all p < 0.005). Furthermore, the expression of any four genes was more significantly correlated with clinicopathological characteristics than the expression of only two or three genes. The combination of multiple molecular markers and the membrane array method might be useful for predicting postoperative relapse in CRC patients.

Results: 40 patients were evaluated for analysis with mean age of 46.80 AE 12.23 years. Majority of the patients had a tumor diameter of !5cm (52.5%) and initial stage of 2B (55%). 90% of patients were compliant to chemotherapy. After completion of CCRT, 85% of patients had tumor regression. Upon follow-up, 10 patients had relapse with majority having initial stage of 2B (60%), tumor diameter of !5cm (90%) and tumor grade of G3 (70%). A significant difference was observed between the living status of patients, tumor response and tumor diameter in relapse and nonrelapse patients with P values of <0.001, 0.002 and 0.009, respectively. 6 patients passed away due to cancer mortality. Conclusions: There was an overall satisfactory outcome, tolerance and compliance to CCRT. Patients in high-risk group had higher incidence of relapse and had poor prognosis.