Expression of Galectin-3 and its clinicopathological significance in colon carcinoma

Objective To investigate the relationship between the expression of Galectin-3 and clinicopathlolgical characters in patients with colon carcinoma.Methods Ninety-two cases with colon carcinoma,20 cases with tubular adenoma of the colon and 20 cases with normal mucous membrane of colon were studied using immunohistochemical method to assess the expression of Galectin-3.Results Expression of Galectin-3 was located in the cytoplasm of all cases with color of yellow or yellow-brown.The expression of Galectin-3 protein in colon carcinoma was significantly stronger than that in adenoma or normal mucosal tissue of colon (P0.05),while the expression of Galectin-3 in adenoma was similar to normal mucosal tissue.The expression of Galectin-3 had the correlation with differentiation of colon carcinoma and lymph node metastasis (P0.05),but the expression of Galectin-3 had no correlation with age or tumor size.Conclusion High expression of Galectin-3 in colon carcinoma suggests strong ability of invasion and metastasis,and the differential expression of Galectin-3 in colon carcinoma is likely related to the growth and metastasis of colon carcinoma.