Expression and prognostic significance of interleukin-36α in colorectal cancers

Objective To investigate the expression and prognostic significance of Interleukin-36α (IL-36α) in colorectal cancer. Methods The expression of IL-36α was tested by immunohistochemical staining in 329 cases of colorectal cancer. According to the intensity and the proportion of positive tumor cells, all the patients were divided into IL-36α low and high expression groups. The clinicopathological factors and prognosis of patients between IL-36α low high expression groups were compared. Results Significant differences were observed in the number of patients in tumor differentiation and pM classification between patients in the IL-36α low and high expression groups (P<0.05). The 5-year overall and tumor-free survival rates of patients were 79.3% and 77.2% in IL-36α low expression group, and 66.3% and 65.3% in IL-36α high expression group (P<0.05). COX proportional hazard regression model revealed that high expression of IL-36α was associated with short overall survival time and tumor-free survival time of colorectal cancer patients (P<0.05). Multivariate analysis identified IL-36α expression in colorectal cancer as an independent prognosticator (P<0.05). Conclusions High expression of IL-36α was correlated with tumor differentiation and pM classification of colorectal cancers, and it is an independent predictor of poor survival for patients with colorectal cancer. Key words: Interleukin-1/AA/ME; Colorectal neoplasms/ME; Prognosis