PROGNOSTIC-SIGNIFICANCE OF FERRITIN EXPRESSION IN COLORECTAL ADENOCARCINOMA

In recent years, there has been considerable interest in ferritin as a n oncofetal protein. However, the clinical significance of ferritin ex pression in cancer tissues remains unknown. We performed an immunohist ochemical study to examine the expression of ferritin in colorectal ad enocarcinoma (n=104). A total of 95 out of 104 (91.3%) colon cancers w ere positive for ferritin expression. The degree of immunoreactivity h as no significant correlation with tumor grade (p=0.964), size (p=0.65 9), serosal invasion (p=0.331), nodal metastasis (p=0.955), distant me tastasis (p=0.354) and DNA ploidy status (p=0.126), but there was a st rong association between ferritin expression of tumor cells and stroma l mononuclear cell infiltration (p=0.004). In terms of prognostic sign ificance, multivariate analysis showed that nodal metastasis (p=0.0123 ) and distant metastasis (p=0.0237) were independent poor prognostic f actors. However, there was no significant difference in survival betwe en patients with weak and strong ferritin expression in cancer tissues (p=0.3766). The results indicate that the majority of colorectal aden ocarcinomas exhibit ferritin expression. The grade of ferritin express ion is strongly associated with stromal mononuclear cell infiltration, but has no significant correlation with any staging parameters or the survival of cancer patients.