In contrast,

patients whose colorectal cancer exhibited high Bax expression had a worse outcome when they received 5-FU based treatment, indicating the treatment might be detrimental. Of note, the study showed that expression levels of Bcl-2 and p53 had no predictive value on survival in colorectal cancer patients with or without chemotherapy. This study was performed on archival tissues from 56 patients that received 1 of 6 different chemotherapy regimens after surgery and 56 patients that received surgery alone for stages I-IV colorectal cancer. Additionally patients that died due to other causes Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical were excluded thus lowering the number of patients in the final analysis. Previous studies Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical evaluating the prognostic and predictive value of Bax in different cancers have shown conflicting results. In patients with breast cancer, although reduced expression of Bax is also found to be associated with a shorter survival, in contrast to the study by Katkoori VR et al, a decreased response to chemotherapy Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical is noted (6). In patients with ovarian cancer, overexpression of Bax is associated with significant higher percentage of complete remission after chemotherapy and the survival is also selleck compound prolonged (7). In patients with diffuse aggressive non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma,

low expression of Bax seemingly is associated with a lower survival (8). In patients with hepatic metastases of colorectal cancer, low Bax expression is noted to be an independent negative prognostic marker (9). Apparently, more studies are needed to elucidate the role of Bax as prognostic/predictive markers in various cancers. For decades, clinical decisions on adjuvant Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical therapy have been determined by the TNM staging system and conventional clinicopathologic factors. Apparently, current therapeutic decision remains suboptimal. With appropriate biomarkers, patients with locally confined cancers who are at low risk

Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical of recurrence/metastasis could be spared from the toxicity of systemic treatment. In contrast, patients with early-staged cancer at high risk of recurrence/metastasis could be benefited from known effective treatment. With Thiamine-diphosphate kinase advances in basic, translational and clinical research, it is believed that validated clinical biomarkers will become a new standard as part of more accurate prognostic systems and form better predictors of response to specific therapies. Efforts are needed to identify predictive markers so that therapeutic decisions may be made with greater precision. Footnotes No potential conflict of interest.
The advent of the total mesorectal excision (TME), which utilizes sharp dissection through a plane between the visceral and parietal layers of the pelvic fascia to excise the tumor and mesorectum en bloc, has dramatically improved local control following surgery (5).