Expression of FoxP3+ Tregs and its Association with Stage and Grade of Colorectal Cancer Patients
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Abstract
Forkhead-box protein P3 regulatory T cells (FoxP3+ Tregs) play an important role in tumour progression by evading the immune escape mechanism. However, the prognostic significance of these FoxP3+ Tregs in colorectal cancer (CRC) remains to be elucidated. This study aims to evaluate the association between the FoxP3+ Tregs immunohistochemistry expression with clinicopathological features of CRC. Materials and methods: This study is a cross-sectional study assessing immunohistochemistry expression of FoxP3+ Tregs in 202 CRC cases from two tertiary hospitals: Hospital Sultanah Bahiyah (HSB), Kedah and Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia (HUSM), Kelantan, from January 2017 to December 2019. FoxP3+ Tregs immunoexpression was divided into a low and high group expression using the median value (19.7) as a separating point. Pearson’s Chi-square and Fisher’s exact tests were used to analyze the association. P value of less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: 102 (50.5%) cases showed high expression of FoxP3+ Tregs within the intra- and peritumoral stroma of CRC, while 100 (49.5%) showed low expression. There is a significant association between FoxP3+ Tregs immunoexpression with pathologic T stage (p=0.001), lymph node involvement (p=0.025), and Modified Dukes staging (p=0.032). Conclusion: This study suggests that FoxP3+ Tregs immunoexpression could serve as a novel marker for classifying CRC and predicting its prognosis in the future.
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