Immunohistochemical Expression of Galectin-3 in Colorectal Carcinoma

Colorectal cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer death in both developed and developing nations. Galectin-3 is a -galactoside-binding protein, whose expression has been correlated with progressionand metastasis in colon cancer. We aimed in this study to evaluate the immunohistochemical expression of Galectin-3 in colorectal carcinoma and its relation with various clinicopathologic variables. Sixty paraffin embedded tissue blocks from colectomy specimens of colorectal carcinoma obtained from pathology department of Cairo University were studied immunohistochemically for Galectin-3 expression. Results showed that: Galectin-3 expression was positive in 81.7% of total colorectal carcinoma studied cases. There was no statistical relationship detected between galectin-3 expression regarding age, sex, tumor gross pattern and tumor size, the depth of tumor invasion, lymph node metastasis, distant metastasis and vascular invasion. Statistically significant relationships were detected between galectin-3 expression regarding tumor site (rectum predominating; P value=0.038), histological type (89.8% of conventional adenocarcinoma cases were galectin-3 positive while 63.6% of mucoid adenocarcinoma cases were galectin-3 negative) (P value <0.001), the histological grade(100% of grade I, 93.75% of grade II and 57.2% of grade III were galectin- 3 positive) (P value=0.002) and modified Dukes' stage (98% of positive galectin-3 expression cases were modified Dukes' stage B&C) (P value=0.01789). In Conclusion& Recommendations: Therefore, it is suggested that galectin-3 may be used as a prognostic marker to predict poor outcome in patients with colorectal carcinomaand it will be necessary to carry out similar studies on a larger sample size.