Novel molecular classification of colorectal cancer and correlation with survival

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most common cancers worldwide. This study was designed to evaluate biological patterns, explore molecular classification and correlate with survival outcome in treatment naïve CRC patients.

Over 11 years consecutive series of 435 CRC patients were operated on as primary surgical therapy. A total of 201 CRC patients were included, whose complete set of clinical information was available, and their good quality tumour blocks were retrieved. Immunohistochemistry was used for tumour analysis, and partitional clustering was performed using R software for cluster analysis.

The median age was 43 (range 10-85) years; adenocarcinoma was the most commonly seen histological type. The great majority had positive CK20, CEA, E-Cadherin, Ki67, CDX2, and p53 expression. There were four distinct molecular classes found, whereas Ki67, CDX2, and p53 play the main role in partitioning. Younger age negatively impacted survival; overall and disease-specific survival was 26 months only with 50 months' longest survival.

Colorectal cancer is a biologically heterogeneous disease with at least four distinct molecular patterns, where cell proliferation and gene repair mechanisms appear to play the key role.