Clinicopathological Characterization and Prognostic Implication of SMAD4 Expression in Colorectal Carcinoma
Open Access
- 15 September 2019
- journal article
- research article
- Published by The Korean Society of Pathologists and The Korean Society for Cytopathology in Journal of Pathology and Translational Medicine
- Vol. 53 (5), 289-297
- https://doi.org/10.4132/jptm.2019.06.07
Abstract
Background: SMAD family member 4 (SMAD4) has gained attention as a promising prognostic factor of colorectal cancer (CRC) as well as a key molecule to understand the tumorigenesis and progression of CRC. Methods: We retrospectively analyzed 1,281 CRC cases immunohistochemically for their expression status of SMAD4, and correlated this status with clinicopathologic and molecular features of CRCs. Results: A loss of nuclear SMAD4 was significantly associated with frequent lymphovascular and perineural invasion, tumor budding, fewer tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes, higher pT and pN category, and frequent distant metastasis. In contrast, tumors overexpressing SMAD4 showed a significant association with sporadic microsatellite instability. After adjustment for TNM stage, tumor differentiation, adjuvant chemotherapy, and lymphovascular invasion, the loss of SMAD4 was found to be an independent prognostic factor for worse 5-year progression-free survival (hazard ratio [HR], 127; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.01 to 1.60; p= .042) and 7-year cancer-specific survival (HR, 1.45; 95% CI, 1.06 to 1.99; p = .022). Conclusions: We confirmed the value of determining the loss of SMAD4 immunohistochemically as an independent prognostic factor for CRC in general. In addition, we identified some histologic and molecular features that might be clues to elucidate the role of SMAD4 in colorectal tumorigenesis and progression.Keywords
Funding Information
- National Research Foundation of Korea
- Korean Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (2011-0030049, 2016M3 A9B6026921)
- Ministry of Health and Welfare (HI14C1277)
- SNUH Research Fund (04-2018-0620)
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