Decreased expression of prolyl hydroxylase 1 is associated with poor prognosis in colorectal cancers

Prolyl hydroxylase 1 (PHD1) is a prognostic marker in several cancers.

This study was undertaken to elucidate the clinical relevance of PHD1 in colorectal cancer (CRC) prognosis.

We compared PHD1 expression on a tissue microarray (TMA) containing samples from 1800 CRCs with corresponding clinicopathological tumor variables and patient survival.

While PHD1 staining was always high in benign colorectal epithelium, high PHD1 staining was detectable in only 71.8% of CRCs. Low PHD1 staining was associated with advanced tumor stage (p = 0.0101) and shortened overall survival in CRC patients (p = 0.0011). In a multivariable analysis including tumor stage, histological type and PHD1 staining revealed tumor stage and histological type (p < 0.0001 each), but also PHD1 staining (p = 0.0202) to be independent prognostic markers for CRC.

In our cohort, loss of PHD1 expression independently identified a subset of CRC patients with poor overall survival and might, thus, be a promising prognostic marker. PHD1 targeting may even allow for specific therapeutic approaches for these patients.