Open Med. 2017; 12: 226-230

Research Article

Open Access

Liu Tao, Li Jin, Li Dechun*, Yang Hongqiang, Kou Changhua, Lei Guijun

Galectin-3 expression in colorectal cancer and its correlation with clinical pathological characteristics and prognosis DOI 10.1515/med-2017-0032 received December 5, 2016; accepted February 24, 2017

Abstract: Objective: To explore the expression levels of galectin-3 in colorectal cancer and the association between galectin-3 and its clinical pathological parameters, as well as the prognosis of colorectal cancer patients. Methods: An immunohistochemistry assay was used to test the expression levels of galectin-3 in cancer tissues of 61 colorectal cancer cases and in normal intestinal tissues adjacent to the cancer tissues of 23 cases. The associations between protein expression levels of galectin-3 and the clinicopathological features, such as age, sex, pathology type, lymphatic metastasis, and prognosis were also analyzed. Results: The positive rate of galectin-3 in cancer tissues was significantly higher than that of cancer-adjacent tissues: 62.5% (38/61) versus 13.0% (3/23) (P