Galectin-3 expression in colorectal cancer and its correlation with clinical pathological characteristics and prognosis

OBJECTIVE: To explore the expression levels of galectin-3 in colorectal cancer and the association between galectin-3 and its clinical pathological parameters, as well as the prognosis of colorectal cancer patients. METHODS: An immunohistochemistry assay was used to test the expression levels of galectin-3 in cancer tissues of 61 colorectal cancer cases and in normal intestinal tissues adjacent to the cancer tissues of 23 cases. The associations between protein expression levels of galectin-3 and the clinicopathological features, such as age, sex, pathology type, lymphatic metastasis, and prognosis were also analyzed. RESULTS: The positive rate of galectin-3 in cancer tissues was significantly higher than that of cancer-adjacent tissues: 62.5% (38/61) versus 13.0% (3/23) (P<0.05), respectively. Correlation was found between the protein expression of galectin-3 and the tumor size (P<0.05), as well as between the tumor differentiation (P<0.05) and Duke staging (P<0.05). The median progression-free survival times of patients with galectin-3 positive and negative expression were 19.2 and 35.1 months, respectively, with significant statistical difference (P<0.05). CONCLUSION: Galectin-3 expression was correlated with the genesis and development of colorectal cancer and which could be used a biological marker for the prognosis of colorectal cancer patients.