Korrelation von Genexpressionsprofilen mit prognostisch relevanten Parametern beim kolorektalen Karzinom

Gene expression profiling is a new powerful tool to obtain additional information from the patient’s prognosis compared to established classifications like e.g. TNM and UICC as shown for other tumor entities. The aim of this study was to identify prognostic signatures for patients with colorectal cancer of all UICC subgroups, especially for patients with versus without lymph node metastasis (N0 vs. N +), and for patients with versus without distant metastasis (M0 vs. M +). We applied Affymetrix GeneChips (33,000 genes) and Laser Capture Microdissection (LCM) in 25 patients with colorectal cancer. Hierarchical cluster analysis discriminates characteristic expression patterns from normal mucosae and cancer tissues (tumor-cluster) of the central (ZT) and the invasion front (IF). A characteristic pattern for N+ could be identified within the tumorcluster. Significant correlation of tumor-clusters and UICC classification and M0 vs. M+ was not found. To obtain additional information to the established prognostic parameters by gene expression profiling in colorectal cancer, expression data have to be correlated with clinicopathological data and the number of patients has to be expanded.