Aim: Recent research suggests that nucleophosmin (NPM) may be a prognostic marker in colorectalcarcinomas (CRC). We here tested its use to predict the survival of CRC patients. Methods: We investigatedNPM expression by immunohistochemistry in histologically normal to malignant colorectal tissues and evaluatedits association with clinicopathological variables. Overall and disease-free survival after tumor removal werecalculated by the Kaplan-Meier method, and differences in survival curves were analyzed by the log-rank test.The Cox proportional hazards model was used for multivariate analysis of prognostic factors. Results: NPMexpression was found significantly upregulated in CRC compared to adjacent colorectal tissue, villous adenoma,tubular adenoma and normal colorectal mucosa (p<0.05 for all). NPM expression was statistically linked tocancer embolus, lymph node metastasis, differentiation grade, and recurrence of CRC. Overall and disease-freesurvival of NPM-negative CRC patients tended to be better than those for patients with NPM-positive lesions(log-rank statistic, p<0.05 for all). Multivariate analysis indicated NPM expression as an independent prognosticindicator for CRC patients (p<0.05 ). Conclusion: Our results suggest that NPM expression can predict thesurvival of CRC patients. Prognosis of CRC is determined by not only many known prognostic factors but alsoby NPM expression.
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