The intratumoral distribution of nuclear β‐catenin is a prognostic marker in colon cancer

BACKGROUND:

Most colon cancers harbor mutations of APC or β‐catenin, both of which may lead to nuclear β‐catenin accumulation in the tumor cells and constitutively activated expression of its target genes. In many colon cancers, however, nuclear β‐catenin accumulation is heterogeneous throughout the tumor and often confined to the tumor margin. Herein, the authors investigated whether the intratumoral distribution of nuclear β‐catenin can serve as a prognostic marker for survival and tumor progression of stage IIA colon cancer patients.

METHODS:

In total, 142 patients with primarily resected, moderately differentiated stage IIA colon cancer were included in this study. The patterning of nuclear β‐catenin expression was evaluated on immunohistochemically stained whole tissue sections of the tumors and was correlated with cancer‐specific survival and disease‐free survival using univariate and multivariate statistical analyses.

RESULTS:

Four distinct patterns of nuclear β‐catenin expression were identified, and 2 main categories comprising tumors with or without intratumoral regulation of nuclear β‐catenin were distinguished. Moreover, the results demonstrated that the patterning, and especially the regulation or absence of regulation of nuclear β‐catenin expression, was a strong predictive marker of patient survival and tumor progression.

CONCLUSIONS:

The current results indicated that the distribution of nuclear β‐catenin expression can be used as a good prognostic marker in patients with stage IIA colon cancer. Thus, the evaluation of nuclear β‐catenin may help to identify patients who will have a shorter than average survival and patients with a greater risk of disease progression who may be considered for adjuvant therapeutic modalities and intensified clinical aftercare in the future. Cancer 2009. © 2009 American Cancer Society.