title: Prognostic value of mucin 4 expression in colorectal adenocarcinomas.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Mucin 4 (MUC4) is aberrantly expressed in colorectal adenocarcinomas (CRCs) but its prognostic value is unknown.
  
  
  METHODS
  Archival tissue specimens collected from 132 CRC patients who underwent surgical resection without presurgery or postsurgery therapy were evaluated for expression of MUC4 by using a mouse monoclonal antibody and horseradish peroxidase. MUC4 expression levels were correlated with clinicopathologic features and patient survival. Survival was estimated by both univariate Kaplan-Meier and multivariate Cox regression methods.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In both normal colonic epithelium and CRCs, MUC4 staining was localized primarily in the cytoplasm. The optimal immunostaining cutoff value (>or=75% positive cells and an immunostaining score>or=2.0), which was derived by using the bootstrap method, was used to categorize CRCs into groups of high expression (33 of 132 patients; 25%) or low expression (99 of 132 patients; 75%). Patients who had early stage tumors (stages I and II) with high MUC4 expression had a shorter disease-specific survival (log-rank; P=.007) than patients who had with low expression. Patients who had advanced-stage CRCs (stages III and IV) did not demonstrate such a difference (log-rank; P=.108). Multivariate regression models that were generated separately for patients with early stage and advanced-stage CRC confirmed that increased expression of MUC4 was an independent indicator of a poor prognosis only for patients who had early stage CRCs (hazard ratio, 3.77; 95% confidence interval, 1.46-9.73).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The current results indicated that increased MUC4 expression is a predictor of poor survival in CRC, specifically for patients who have early stage tumors.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama 35294-7331, USA.
authors.forename: Chandrakumar
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Shanmugam
authors.forename: Nirag C
authors.initials: NC
authors.lastname: Jhala
authors.forename: Venkat R
authors.initials: VR
authors.lastname: Katkoori
authors.forename: Wen
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Wan
authors.forename: Sreelatha
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Meleth
authors.forename: William E
authors.initials: WE
authors.lastname: Grizzle
authors.forename: Upender
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Manne
mesh_terms: D000230:Adenocarcinoma / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000378:metabolism / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology; D000368:Aged; D015179:Colorectal Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000378:metabolism / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D055264:Mucin-4; D011379:Prognosis
chemical_list: D055264:Mucin-4