Background: Colorectal cancer was found to be one of the three most commonly diagnosed cancers in developed countries and one of the major mortality-causing cancers in industrialized countries. In Egypt, the incidence rates of CRC represent 6.5% of all diagnosed cancer cases. However, development of CRC could be effectively reduced if colonic adenomas were diagnosed early using an efficient screening method. The Caudal-related homeobox intestine-specific transcription factor was found to display tumor-suppressing activity in colorectal cancer.
Methodology: the current study, the pattern of CDX2 expression in colo-rectal mucosa was studied in relation to adenocarcinoma, pre-malignant colonic lesions of patients suffering from IBD, colitis, adenoma and for the first time -up to the most of our knowledge-to intestinal bilharziasis using immunohistochemical analysis.
Results: A significant difference between levels of CDX2 expression was displayed amongst the groups involved in this study
Conclusion: The immunohistochemical analysis has shown that measuring CDX2 expression patterns is a reliable method to distinguish between adenomas and adenocarcinomas, high grade and low grade tumors, and also between dysplastic and non-dysplastic inflammatory bowl diseases. However, CDX2 expression pattern failed to show any clear role of bilharziasis as premalignant colonic lesion
