The use of multiple molecular markers as predictors of the clinical prognosis of patients with colorectal cancer

Serum carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) is most commonly used as a prognostic biomarker for evaluating curatively resected colorectal cancer (CRC) patients, but it has a low sensitivity and specificity. The aim of this study was to evaluate potential genetic markers in CRC patients using membrane array. Fifty CRC patients were enrolled and mRNA expression in their tissues were analyzed using membrane array analysis. Seven genes were analyzed in this study, including ATP2A2, GLUT1, MMP13, MAGE-A2, MAGE-A7, MAGE-A8, and MAGE-A12. Correlations between the results of the membrane array and the clinicopathological features of these CRC patients were then evaluated. The results show that the overexpression of any three or four of these seven genes is correlated with tumor invasion depth, lymphatic invasion, advanced stage, and postoperative recurrence (all p < 0.005). Furthermore, the expression of any four genes was more significantly correlated with clinicopathological characteristics than the expression of only two or three genes. The combination of multiple molecular markers and the membrane array method might be useful for predicting postoperative relapse in CRC patients.