Expression of clusterin in colorectal carcinoma in relation to clinicopathological criteria

ABSTRACT

Background/Aim: Colorectal carcinoma (CRC) carries a high incidence of morbidity and mortality.Prognosis is related to nodal metastasis and stage. Clusterin is a widely distributed glycoproteinwith not yet fully understood functions. Clusterin may be overexpressed in some tumours or underexpressed in other tumours. The aim behind this study is to examine the relation of clusterincytoplasmic immunostaining to tumour characteristics, disease relapse, and survival in CRC. Materialsand Methods: Paraffin blocks of 133 CRCs were retrieved from the Department of Pathology,King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Immunostaining was done using antibody toclusterin. Staining expression in 10% of malignant cells was used as a cut-off to determine lowimmunostaining and high immunostaining. Statistical tests were used to evaluate the association ofclusterin immunostaining with clinicopathological parameters. Results: Immunohistochemical resultsshowed clusterin low immunostaining in CRC and nodal metastases. No association was foundbetween clusterin immunostaining and tumour grade, age, tumour invasiveness, distant metastases,vascular invasion, nodal metastases, relapse, and survival. Conclusion: Our study showed low clusterinimmunostaining in CRC with lack of association with prognostic indicators in CRC. These resultsraise the controversy of understanding the role of clusterin in CRC. Further molecular studies arerequired to explore more about possible mechanisms of clusterin association with tumorigenicity,apoptosis, tumour growth progression, local and vascular invasion, and metastasis of CRC.