title: Tumour basement membrane laminin in adenocarcinoma of rectum: an immunohistochemical study of biological and clinical significance.
abstract: Well-defined basement membrane laminin was seen in 98/158 (62%) rectal adenocarcinomas stained by an immunoperoxidase method. Only 27 (28%) patients with laminin-positive tumours developed distant metastases, compared with 39 (65%) patients with laminin-negative carcinomas. The corrected 5-year survival rates for patients with laminin-positive and laminin-negative tumours were 65% and 23%, respectively. Twenty-five out of 30 (83%) well-differentiated adenocarcinomas and only 3/15 (17%) poorly differentiated tumours contained basement membrane laminin, with moderately differentiated carcinomas showing intermediate laminin status (70/110, 64%, laminin positive). Forty-three of 60 (72%) of laminin-negative tumours had metastasized to regional lymph nodes. These data suggest that laminin may be a marker for differentiation. However, laminin status yields information about tumour behaviour which is not confined to stage and grade, and multivariate analysis shows that it is a better indicator of prognosis than tumour grade as assessed by conventional histology. Although laminin status alone is a less useful predictor of prognosis than Dukes' stage, a patient with a laminin-positive adenocarcinoma of rectum is 2.7 times as likely to survive 5 years than a patient with a laminin-negative tumour. Assessment of laminin status, together with Dukes' stage is, therefore, commended as a more precise and objective indicator of prognosis than histological degree of differentiation in colorectal carcinoma.
mesh_terms: D000230:Adenocarcinoma / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001485:Basement Membrane / Q000378:metabolism*; D006801:Humans; D007124:Immunoenzyme Techniques; D007797:Laminin / Q000378:metabolism*; D008207:Lymphatic Metastasis; D011379:Prognosis; D012004:Rectal Neoplasms / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology
chemical_list: D007797:Laminin