Abstract
We evaluated E-cadherin expression in a series of Libyan colorectal cancer cases to get an insight in its potential prognostic value in colorectal cancer in Libyan patients.
A series of 81 Libyan patients with colorectal carcinoma were retrospectively studied. All carcinomas were selected from the archives of the Department of Pathology, Benghazi University, from the period from January 2007 to December 2011. All tumours were classified using the histopathological criteria of the WHO classification, and staging was made according to the TNM classification of the UICC. Two staining indexes were calculated: the membrane index (MI) and cytoplasmic index (CI). These indices were calculated with both the intensity of staining and the fraction of positively-stained cells taken into account using the following formula: I =0 x f0 +1 x f1 +2 x f2 +3 x f3.
Our data showed that loss of E-cadherin expression is more frequently detected in older patients and in patients with lymph node involvement; 75% of tumours with lymph node involvement showed negative expression of E-cadherin. E-cadherin expression was associated with disease outcome.
These data suggest that the loss of the E-cadherin function could be associated with invasiveness, lymph node metastasis, and distant metastasis, resulting in poor prognosis.