Clinical significance of CD44 variants expression in colorectal cancer.

AIMS AND BACKGROUND

We designed the present study to observe CD44s and CD44v6 expressions in colorectal cancer and evaluate their clinical value.

METHODS

CD44s and CD44v6 expression in colorectal cancer tissues were examined by an immunohistochemical test. Survival analysis was performed with the Kaplan-Meier method, and the differences between the CD44-positive and -negative groups were evaluated with the logrank test.

RESULTS

The positive rates of CD44s and CD44v6 were 66.7% and 63.2%, respectively. There were significant associations between CD44s positive expression and Dukes' stage or tumor differentiation. There were significant associations between CD44v6 positive expression and tumor differentiation, Dukes' stage and lymph node metastasis. There was a significant difference in the 5-year survival rates between CD44v6-positive and CD44v6-negative groups (52.78% and 80.95%, respectively), but not between CD44s-positive and CD44s-negative groups (55.26% and 78.95%, respectively). Multivariate analysis indicated that CD44v6 positive expression predicts a poor prognosis.

CONCLUSIONS

CD44s and CD44v6 play important roles in the infiltration and metastasis of colorectal cancer. CD44v6 positive expression can be a predictor for a poor prognosis.