1. ¹Pathology Division, National Cancer Center Research Institute, Tokyo 1-1 Tsukiji 5-Chome, Chuo-ku, 104-0045, Japan
2. ²Department of Surgery, National Cancer Center Hospital, Tokyo, Japan
3. ³Cancer Information and Epidemiology Division, National Cancer Center Research Institute, Tokyo, Japan
4. ⁴Department of Surgery, Keio University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan
5. ⁵Department of Pathology, Keio University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan

Correspondence: Dr S Hirohashi, E-mail: shirohas@ncc.go.jp

Received 27 August 2002; Revised 21 November 2002; Accepted 2 December 2002.

Abstract

A novel glycoprotein, dysadherin, has an anti-cell – cell adhesion function through downregulating E-cadherin. In this study, we investigated the expressions of dysadherin and E-cadherin in 82 patients with stage II and III colorectal carcinomas to determine the correlation between the two molecules and the clinicopathologic features of each tumour. Dysadherin was not expressed in normal colorectal epithelium. Fifty-one per cent of tumours showed dysadherin immunopositivity in over 50% of cancer cells. Thirty-eight per cent of tumours showed reduced E-cadherin immunopositivity. The increased expression of dysadherin was significantly associated with lung metastasis (P=0.003). The increased expression of dysadherin had a significant impact on patient survival (P=0.0099 and 0.0036, log-rank test for overall and recurrence-free survival rate, respectively). Furthermore, tumour with increased expression of dysadherin and reduced expression of E-cadherin showed the worst prognosis (P=0.0043 and 0.0028, log-rank test for overall and recurrence-free survival rate, respectively). These results suggest that increased dysadherin expression is a significant indicator of poor prognosis for patients with advanced colorectal carcinoma.