ABSTRACT
Purpose To investigate the prognostic significance of NQO1 protein expression in colorectal carcinoma ( CRC) patients. Methods 192 cases of primary CRC, 28 of colonic dysplasia, and 44 of adjacent non-tumor tissues were selected for immunohisto-chemical staining of NQO1 protein. Correlation between NQO1 overexpression and clinicopathologic characteristics, and the survival rates were calculated by the statistical methods. Results The strongly positive rate of NQO1 protein in CRC was significantly higher than that in gastric dysplasia and adjacent non-tumor tissues (P<0. 01, respectively). NQO1 high-expression rate was positively cor-related with differentiation, serosal invasion, lymph node metastasis, and clinical stage (P <0. 05, respectively). Survival curve showed that the disease-free survival and 5-year survival rates of the patients with high NQO1 expression were obviously shorter than those of patients with low NQO1 expression (P<0. 001, respectively). Further analysis showed that, high expression of NQO1 predic-ted the lower disease-free survival and 5-year survival rates in late-stage patients (P<0. 01, respectively). Importantly, NQO1 was an independent risk factor for the prognosis of CRC using Cox proportional hazards regression model ( HR: 1. 398,95%CI: 1. 011 ~1. 934, P=0. 043). Conclusions Detection of NQO1 protein expression in CRC has an important clinical significance, and it is ex-pected to become a new biomarker for CRC.