title: Gastrointestinal cancer-associated antigen (GICA) immunoreactivity in colorectal carcinoma in relation to patient survival.
abstract: Immunoreactivity of gastrointestinal cancer-associated antigen (GICA) was studied in tissue sections of 311 colorectal cancer patients and the results were correlated with data on patient survival. The group of uniformly GICA-positive tumours (10.6%) tended to behave more aggressively than focally positive (53.4%) and GICA-negative tumours (36.0%), also when stratified for stage of tumour extension and histological grade. This trend, however, did not reach statistical significance, perhaps as the result of a bias introduced by the relatively small number of GICA-positive cases. There appeared to be no significant difference in clinical course between patients with GICA focally positive or GICA-negative tumours (together comprising 89.4% of the total population studied). Further studies including a larger number of patients and longer follow-up periods are needed to validate the suggestion that GICA-positive colorectal carcinomas might show a more aggressive behaviour than tumours displaying other modes of GICA expression. However, the results of our study suggest that GICA immunoreactivity in colorectal carcinoma tissue is unlikely to be a sensitive, independent parameter for the prediction of prognosis in individual patients.
mesh_terms: D000911:Antibodies, Monoclonal; D000951:Antigens, Neoplasm / Q000032:analysis*; D003110:Colonic Neoplasms / Q000276:immunology* / Q000401:mortality; D006801:Humans; D007124:Immunoenzyme Techniques; D011379:Prognosis; D012004:Rectal Neoplasms / Q000276:immunology* / Q000401:mortality
chemical_list: D000911:Antibodies, Monoclonal; D000951:Antigens, Neoplasm