Intestinal trefoil factor: a marker of poor prognosis in gastric carcinoma

Intestinal trefoil factor (ITF) is a marker of intestinal differentiation that may also play a role in cancer cell biology by inhibiting cell adhesion, promoting cell invasion, and blocking apoptosis. Gastric adenocarcinomas can arise through a process of intestinalization, but no study has yet comprehensively examined the expression of ITF in gastric cancer or correlated ITF expression with clinical outcome in any cancer type.

Patients (209) with primary gastric adenocarcinoma were evaluated for ITF expression by immunohistochemistry. Results of immunostaining were correlated with clinicopathological variables and overall survival.

In normal gastric mucosa, ITF expression was absent, whereas areas of intestinal metaplasia revealed strong ITF expression by goblet cells. A portion of gastric cancers (55%) demonstrated ITF expression. Women were more likely than men to express ITF in gastric cancers. However, in men, the expression of ITF correlated with aggressive phenotype of tumors (advanced stage, infiltrative growth pattern, and positive lymph nodes). Multivariate analysis revealed that expression of ITF was associated with a poor prognosis, independent of tumor stage.

This is the first study to correlate ITF expression with clinicopathological features or outcome in any cancer type. ITF expression in gastric cancer exhibited a curious gender-associated relationship, being more frequently expressed in tumors of women, but associated with more aggressive pathological features in men. The poor prognosis of patients with ITF-positive gastric cancers further implicates ITF in cancer cell biology.