The relationship of A Proliferation-Inducing Ligand expression with the clinical pathology and prognosis in colorectal carcinoma

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the protein expression of A Proliferation-Inducing Ligand (APRIL) in colorectal cancer (CRC) tissue, and its correlation with clinical pathology and prognosis. Methods: One hundred and twenty cases of CRC tissue and related clinical data were collected from the Department of Pathology of Affiliated Hospital of Nantong University. The specimens were made into tissue microarray. The protein expression of APRIL was detected by Envision immunohistochemistry. The relationship of the protein expression of APRIL with clinicopathological parameters and follow-up data were statistically analyzed. Results: APRIL protein expression positive rate of CRC tissue and cancer adjacent normal mucosal tissue were 83.33% (100/120) and 12.5% (15/120), with a statistical significance (P<0.001). The expression of APRIL was related to TNM staging (χ2=10.222, P=0.006) and the depth of tumor invasion (χ2=5.987, P=0.014). Kaplan-Meier survival curves showed that five years survival rate of high APRIL expression group was lower than that of low APRIL expression group. Univariate survival analysis showed that the expression of APRIL (P<0.001), the degree of tumor differentiation (P=0.033), TNM staging (P<0.001), depth of tumor invasion (P=0.011), lymph node metastasis (P<0.001) and serum CEA (P=0.003) time were associated with postoperative survival. Multivariate COX proportional hazard regression model analysis further revealed the expression of APRIL (P=0.001), the degree of tumor differentiation (P=0.005), TNM staging (P=0.001) and serum CEA (P=0.039) were the independent risk factors for prognosis. Conclusion: The expression of APRIL in CRC tumor tissue is closely related to TNM stage and depth of tumor invasion. The high expression of APRIL prompts bad prognosis. APRIL is one of the independent prognostic factors in patients with CRC, and could be a potential target for the therapy of CRC.