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Increased neuroendocrine cells in resected metastases compared to primary colorectal adenocarcinomas

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Abstract

Neuroendocrine differentiation has been described in rectal adenocarcinomas receiving neoadjuvant therapy prior to radical surgery, but its clinical relevance is controversial and no data are currently available in colorectal carcinoma metastases as compared to primary tumors. The presence of chromogranin A positive tumor cells was investigated by means of immunohistochemistry on surgical specimens from 54 primary colorectal carcinomas and their corresponding metastases, resected at diagnosis or during tumor progression. In 47 patients, tumor metastases were resected 1 month to 12 years after chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy, while in the remaining seven patients no additional therapy after primary surgery was performed. In primary tumors, neuroendocrine differentiation was found in 12/54 cases (22.2%) as compared to 25/54 metastatic lesions (46.3%; p = 0.01). The presence of neuroendocrine phenotype was not correlated with any clinical pathological parameter nor with a different proliferation index. However, patients having neuroendocrine cells in the primary tumor had a significantly shorter survival from the time of metastatic spread than those having not (33.3 vs. 55.5 months; p = 0.04). In summary, our data show that colorectal carcinoma metastases contain a higher percentage of neuroendocrine differentiated cells as compared to their corresponding primaries, a finding possibly related to the influence of chemotherapy in neuroendocrine differentiation during colorectal carcinoma progression.

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Acknowledgments

This work is partially supported by grants from the Italian Ministry of University (ex-60%, Rome) to MV, MT, and MP.

Conflict of interest statement

We declare that we have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Pathology, University of Turin at San Luigi Hospital, Orbassano, Torino, Italy

    Marco Volante, Valerio Marci, Veronica Tavaglione & Mauro Papotti

  2. Division of Oncology, Department of Clinical & Biological Sciences, University of Turin at San Luigi Hospital, Orbassano, Torino, Italy

    Maria Carla Sculli & Marco Tampellini

  3. Institute of Pathology CHUV and University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Snezana Andrejevic-Blant

  4. Department of Clinical and Biological Sciences, University of Turin at San Luigi Hospital, Regione Gonzole 10, 10043, Orbassano, Torino, Italy

    Marco Volante

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  1. Marco Volante
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  2. Valerio Marci
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  4. Veronica Tavaglione
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  5. Maria Carla Sculli
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  6. Marco Tampellini
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  7. Mauro Papotti
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Correspondence to Marco Volante.

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Volante, M., Marci, V., Andrejevic-Blant, S. et al. Increased neuroendocrine cells in resected metastases compared to primary colorectal adenocarcinomas. Virchows Arch 457, 521–527 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00428-010-0967-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00428-010-0967-8

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