Purpose: The present study aimed to examine the association of tumour necrosis factor-α-induced protein 8 (TIPE) expression levels with clinicopathological features and prognosis of patients with colon cancer following surgery.
Patients and Methods: The present study included 200 patients with colon cancer who underwent colon resection between June 2011 and October 2012. All follow-ups were censored in July 2020, with a median follow-up time of 62.25 months. Kaplan–Meier survival curve analysis and Cox regression analysis were used to determine predictors for the overall survival rate.
Results: High expression of TIPE was associated with lymph node metastasis, higher Dukes’ stage and right-sided colon cancer (RCC). An exploratory subgroup analysis found that high expression of TIPE was associated with age ≥ 65, lymphatic invasion and higher Dukes’ stage only in the RCC group (P < 0.05), whereas no similar trend was observed in the left-sided colon cancer (LCC) subgroup. Age ≥ 65, differentiation, lymph node metastasis and TIPE expression levels were independent prognostic factors influencing the survival rate of patients with colon cancer following surgery in multivariate Cox analysis (P < 0.05). ROC curve analysis showed that the immunoreactive score of TIPE had good predictive value for five-year survival rates (AUC=0.727) and lymph node metastasis (AUC=0.760) among patients with RCC. Survival analysis revealed that the expression of TIPE had a significant impact on survival, and higher expression levels suggested a worse prognosis.
Conclusion: This study demonstrated that TIPE may be a novel biomarker for predicting the survival outcome and lymph node metastasis. TIPE was overexpressed in colon cancer tissue and significantly associated with poor patient survival, especially in patients with RCC.
Keywords: colonic neoplasms, TIPE, biomarker, prognosis, immunohistochemistry