Background
Around 30% of all stage II colon cancer patients will relapse and die of their disease. At present no
Conclusion
In the present series of MSS stage II colon cancer patients losses on 4q22.1-4q35.2 were associated with worse outcome and these genomic alterations may aid in selecting patients for adjuvant therapy.
Methods
DNA was isolated from 40 formaldehyde fixed paraffin embedded stage II colon cancer samples with extensive clinicopathological data. Samples were hybridized using Comparative Genomic Hybridization (CGH) arrays to determine DNA copy number changes and microsatellite stability was determined by PCR. To analyze differences between stage II colon cancer patients with and without relapse of tumor a Wilcoxon rank-sum test was implemented with multiple testing correction.
Results
Stage II colon cancers of patients who had relapse of disease showed significantly more losses on chromosomes 4, 5, 15q, 17q and 18q. In the microsatellite stable (MSS) subgroup (n = 28), only loss of chromosome 4q22.1-4q35.2 was significantly associated with disease relapse (P < 0.05, FDR < 0.15). No differences in clinicopathological characteristics between patients with and without relapse were observed.