Background: Recent studies suggest that altered patterns of stanniocalcin 1 (STC1) gene expression have a role in human carcinogenesis. This study examined the relationship between the relative expression of the STC1 gene and clinicopathological factors in patients with colorectal cancer.
Patients and methods: Surgical specimens of cancer tissue and adjacent normal mucosa were obtained from 202 patients with colorectal carcinomas. The relative expression levels of STC1 mRNA in the cancer and the normal adjacent mucosa were measured by quantitative real-time, reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction.
Results: The relative expression levels of the STC1 gene were higher in the cancer tissue than in the normal adjacent mucosa and high expression of STC1 correlated with poor postoperative survival.
Conclusion: High expression of the STC1 gene might be a useful predictor of poor postoperative outcome in patients with colorectal cancer.