The prevalence and clinical significance of chromogranin A and secretogranin II immunoreactivity in colorectal adenocarcinomas

Abstract

Colorectal adenocarcinomas may display features of endocrine differentiation, shown by argyrophil stains and by the expression of endocrine markers such as chromogranin A. We investigated chromogranin A and secretogranin II immunoreactivity in a series of 208 carcinomas of the large bowel to assess the prevalence and clinical significance of endocrine differentiation. Tumors expressing endocrine markers were classified as low expressors (< than 1 immunoreactive tumour cell/mm2) and high expressors (> than 1 immunoreactive tumour cell/mm2). There were 33 (16%) carcinomas showing both chromogranin A and secretogranin II immunoreactivity: 11 tumours (5%) were high expressors. Endocrine differentiation was not related to the disease stage, tumour location, grade, DNA ploidy and p53 protein accumulation. In the entire series chromogranin A immunoreactivity did not provide prognostic information using univariate and multivariate analysis. A worse overall survival (P = 0.048) was demonstrated for the stage III patients with high expressor tumours, but there were only five patients in this group. The results of our investigation suggest that chromogranin A immunoreactivity is not a useful variable in the prognostic assessment of colorectal adenocarcinomas.

Increased neuroendocrine cells in resected metastases compared to primary colorectal adenocarcinomas

“…In the present series, cases having a neuroendocrine differentiated component in the primary tumors had a slightly shorter survival both from the time of diagnosis and the time from metastatic spread but statistical significance was reached for the latter case only, possible due to the relatively small sample size. Other literature data are in line with this observation [13,19,20], although some authors found no prognostic differences between neuroendocrine differentiated and conventional colorectal carcinoma [21]. No correlation was also observed with any clinical pathological parameter.…”

The significance of neuroendocrine differentiation in adenocarcinoma of the esophagus and esophagogastric junction after preoperative chemoradiation

“…6,7,26 In our study, the majority of tumors had focal NE differentiation (<5% of tumor cells). This finding was similar to previous studies, which found focal NE differentiation in tumors from multiple organ sites, including tumors of the pancreas, 13 colon, 21,22,25,27,28 and esophagus. 7,26 It is noteworthy that, in the current study, the percentage of tumor cells with NE differentiation was increased significantly in residual tumor in posttreatment resection specimens compared with paired tumor in pretreatment biopsy specimens.…”

Chromogranin A and B and secretogranin II in prostatic adenocarcinomas: Neuroendocrine expression in patients untreated and treated with androgen deprivation therapy

“…Nowadays, a common endodermal ancestor has been wellestablished for the exocrine as well as NE cells of the gastrointestinal and respiratory tracts [45,46]. NE expression is a common characteristic of tumors arising in organs normally containing NE cells [47][48][49][50]. Interestingly, NE cells of both normal and neoplastic prostate have been found to express PSA antigen [23,51].…”

“…This was first suggested by Cohen et al [19], who detected CgA expression in 50% of the tumors in their series and found a strict correlation between endocrine differentiation and an adverse prognosis. Unlike Cohen et al [19] we investigated a consecutive series of surgically removed PACs, discarding bioptic samples because of the nonhomogeneous distribution of neoplastic NE cells in nonendocrine tumors [49,50], and then dividing the IR cases into low and high NE expressors. Using this methodological approach, the NE differentiation of prostatic adenocarcinomas appears to be a quite frequent event (≈86%), that per se militates against its supposed unfavorable prognostic significance.…”