STMN1 in colon cancer: expression and prognosis in Chinese patients

H.-Q. Zhang, X. Guo, S.-Q. Guo, Q. Wang, X.-Q. Chen, X.-N. Li, L.-S. Guo

Department of General Surgery, The First Central Hospital of Baoding, Baoding, China. guo_shu_qin@126.com

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• Oncology

OBJECTIVE: To study the stathmin (STMN1) expression in colorectal cancer and tumor-adjacent normal tissue and discuss its prognostic significance in colon cancer.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: STMN1 was tested with qRT-PCR in 30 samples of fresh colon cancer tissue and tumor-adjacent issue, and with immunohistochemical SP method in 105 samples of fresh colon cancer tissue and tumor-adjacent issue to analyze the association between its expression and clinical pathological parameters. Clinical data was combined to study the relationship between STMN1 expression and 5-year survival rate. Univariate analysis and Cox multivariate regression were performed to study the correlation between STMN1 expression and prognosis.

RESULTS: The mRNA and protein level of STMN1 were significantly higher in colon cancer samples than tumor-adjacent normal tissues (p<0.05). STMN1 expression was independent of patient age, gender or location, but significantly related to lymph node metastasis and TNM staging (p<0.05). Survival analysis by Kaplan-Meier method showed that STMN1 expression was significantly related with the survival of colon cancer patients. The median survival time of STMN1-positive patients (37.5 months) was significantly shorter than STMN1-negative patients (57.1 months, p<0.05). Cox multivariate regression indicated that STMN1 is independent prognostic factors predicting the development, invasion and metastasis of colon cancer (p<0.05).

CONCLUSIONS: STMN1 overexpression in colon cancer is independently associated with improved survival and significantly related to the development of the disease. Our findings suggest that presence of a STMN1-prognosis interaction that potentially determines clinical outcome.

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