Fascin expression in colorectal carcinomas

Abstract

PURPOSEThe purpose of this study was to investigate the significance of fascin expression in colorectal carcinoma.METHODSThis is a retrospective study of 167 consecutive, well-documented cases of primary colorectal adenocarcinoma for which archival material of surgical specimens from primary tumor resections were available. We chose a representative tissue sample block and examined fascin expression by immunohistochemistry using a primary antibody against “fascin”. We calculated the “immunohistochemical score (IHS)” of fascin for each case, which was calculated from the multiplication of scores for the percentage of stained cells and the staining intensity.RESULTSFascin immunoreactivity was observed in 59 (35.3%) of all cases with strong reactivity in 24 (14.4%), moderate reactivity in 25 (14.9%) and weak reactivity in 10 (6.0%) cases. Strong/moderate immunoreactivities were mostly observed in invasive fronts of the tumors or in both invasive and other areas. Fascin immunoreactivity scores were significantly higher in tumors with lymph node metastasis (p:0.002) and advanced stage presentation (p:0.007). There was no relation between fascin expression and age, gender, depth of invasion, distant metastasis or histological grade (p>0.05). There was a higher and statistically significant correlation between fascin immunoreactivity in the invasive borders of tumors and lymph node metastasis (r:0.747, p:0.005). In stage III/IV tumors, two-year survival was 92.2% in tumors without fascin immunoreactivity, and only 60.0% in tumors with a fascin IHS>10 (p:0.003).CONCLUSIONThese findings suggest that fascin is heterogeneously expressed in approximately one third of colorectal carcinomas with a significant association with lymph node metastasis, tumor stage and location. Moreover, these results indicate that fascin may have a role in the lymph node metastasis of colorectal carcinomas.

Fascin expression in dendritic cells and tumor epithelium in thymoma and thymic carcinoma

“…However, it has also been reported that epithelial fascin expression does not affect the prognosis in extrahepatic and hilar cholangiocarcinoma (20). We confirmed that fascin + -activated tumor epithelium may proliferate (14,15,19,21) since there was a positive correlation between intensity of epithelium and fascin + epithelium. However, in the present study, fascin + epithelium also correlated with intensity of DCs and DC-cluster ratio.…”

“…By contrast, it has been reported that fascin + tumor epithelium has strong invasiveness with poorer prognosis in various carcinomas, such as ovarian, breast, pancreas, lung, cutaneous, brain, gastrointestinal, thyroid, prostate, urothelial, intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma and skin tumors (14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23). The significance of epithelial fascin expression has been reported to be associated with invasiveness and metastasis, since it aids in cell migration and proliferation through increases in lamellipodial and filopodial cell protrusions (15).…”

“…In normal adult human tissues, fascin expression is restricted to neurons and DCs; both cell types have markedly large filopodia and are highly motile (11,13). Fascin expression in various neoplastic cells has also been investigated, and its expression has been reported to be associated with epithelial to mesenchymal progression and invasion of tumor cells as well as a clinically aggressive manifestation and poorer prognosis (14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23). However, to the best of our knowledge, immunohistochemical studies for the detection of fascin + mature DCs in thymoma have yet to be performed.…”

A myth that early feeding causes bowel anastomotic leakage: is it true?

“…5 Early feeding reverses the mucosal atrophy induced by starvation and increases anastomotic collagen deposition and strength. [6][7][8] Most of the practicing surgeon even today practicing, keep the patient NPO for 4-5 days after ileostomy closure and uses nasogastric tubes until resolution of the post operative ileus .Recently ,this approach has been questioned and few studies have shown that nasogastric tube insertion has a limited role in postoperative care of abdominal surgery. 2 In present study ,nasogastric tube was inserted before surgery and removed after 6 hr of surgery and this approach was tolerated by all the patients and in no patients we needed reinsertion of nasogastric tube.…”

Stress-induced cleavage of Myc promotes cancer cell survival

“…Immunohistochemistry studies revealed fascin to be highly expressed at the invasive front of human colorectal cancer (Vignjevic et al 2007;Ozerhan et al 2010). To investigate the association of Myc-nick with metastatic behavior, we compared the localization of Myc in the central area of human colorectal tumor biopsies and the invasive front of the same tumors by immunohistochemistry.…”