Immunohistochemical expression of Lewis X antigen in relation to prognosis of patients with rectal carcinoma deployed by nitinol stent

Objective To investigate the level of cell adhesion molecule Lewis X expression in malignant rectal obstrucdon deployed by nitinol stent and its relationship with infiltrabon,metastasis and prognosis in patients with advanced rectal carcinoma.Methods Lewis X expression and its optical density of biopsy was quantitatively studied with catalyzed signal amplification(CSA)immunohistochemical method combined with image analysis technique in advanced rectal carcinoma treated by nitinol stent( n = 30). Results The positive expression of Lewis X was observed in 27 of 30 patients with advanced rectal carcinoma treated by nitinol stent (90.9 % ). The cellular membrane and cy-toplasma in tubules of cancer and the mucous-pool of the mucinous adenocarcinoma were strongly stained. The mean integral optical density of Lewis X positive cell in poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma was significantly higher than that in differentiated and mucinous ones ( P 0.01). It was markedly higher in patients with positive lymphatic nodes than that in negative ones( P 0.01) .With followed-up-for longer than 1 year,it was much lower in the alive cases than that in the death( P 0.01). Conclusion These findings indicate that changes of Lewis X expression and its optical density is related to invasion , metastasis and survival of advanced rectal carcinoma. It may play a certain role to predict the malignancy,progression and prognosis of patients with stent.