The Role of and in Predicting the Response to Neoadjuvant Therapy in Rectal Cancer Patients.

: The effectiveness of neoadjuvant therapy, which is commonly used for stage II-III rectal cancer (RC) treatment, is limited. Genes associated with the pathogenesis of RC could determine response to this treatment. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the potential predictive value of and genes and the associations between post-treatment changes in gene expression and the efficacy of neoadjuvant therapy. : Biopsies from RC and healthy rectal tissue of 28 RC patients were collected before neoadjuvant therapy and 6-8 weeks after neoadjuvant therapy. The expression levels of VEGFA, COX2, HUR, CUGBP2 genes were evaluated using a quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. Results: The results reveal a significantly higher expression of , and mRNA in RC tissue compared to healthy rectal tissue ( < 0.05), and elevated gene expression in pre-treatment tissues was associated with a better response to neoadjuvant therapy based on T-stage downstaging ( < 0.05). The expression of and genes significantly decreased after neoadjuvant therapy ( < 0.05). Responders to treatment demonstrated a significantly stronger decrease of and expression after neoadjuvant therapy than non-responders ( < 0.05). : The findings of this study suggest that the pre-treatment gene expression might have predictive value for the response to neoadjuvant therapy, while the post-treatment decrease in and gene expression could indicate the effectiveness of neoadjuvant therapy in RC patients.