STMN1 in colon cancer: expression and prognosis in Chinese patients

To study the stathmin (STMN1) expression in colorectal cancer and tumor-adjacent normal tissue and discuss its prognostic significance in colon cancer.

STMN1 was tested with qRT-PCR in 30 samples of fresh colon cancer tissue and tumor-adjacent issue, and with immunohistochemical SP method in 105 samples of fresh colon cancer tissue and tumor-adjacent issue to analyze the association between its expression and clinical pathological parameters. Clinical data was combined to study the relationship between STMN1 expression and 5-year survival rate. Univariate analysis and Cox multivariate regression were performed to study the correlation between STMN1 expression and prognosis.

The mRNA and protein level of STMN1 were significantly higher in colon cancer samples than tumor-adjacent normal tissues (p<0.05). STMN1 expression was independent of patient age, gender or location, but significantly related to lymph node metastasis and TNM staging (p<0.05). Survival analysis by Kaplan-Meier method showed that STMN1 expression was significantly related with the survival of colon cancer patients. The median survival time of STMN1-positive patients (37.5 months) was significantly shorter than STMN1-negative patients (57.1 months, p<0.05). Cox multivariate regression indicated that STMN1 is independent prognostic factors predicting the development, invasion and metastasis of colon cancer (p<0.05).

STMN1 overexpression in colon cancer is independently associated with improved survival and significantly related to the development of the disease. Our findings suggest that presence of a STMN1-prognosis interaction that potentially determines clinical outcome.