PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - OI, KENTARO AU - MAKINO, MASATO AU - OZAKI, MAI AU - TAKEMOTO, HIROKI AU - YAMANE, NARIYUKI AU - NAKAMURA, SEIICHI AU - IKEGUCHI, MASAHIDE AU - KAIBARA, NOBUAKI TI - Immunohistochemical Dihydropyrimidine Dehydrogenase Expression is a Good Prognostic Indicator for Patients with Dukes' C Colorectal Cancer DP - 2004 Jan 01 TA - Anticancer Research PG - 273--280 VI - 24 IP - 1 4099 - http://ar.iiarjournals.org/content/24/1/273.short 4100 - http://ar.iiarjournals.org/content/24/1/273.full SO - Anticancer Res2004 Jan 01; 24 AB - Background: Dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase (DPD) is an enzyme that catabolizes 5-fluorouracil (5-FU), which is widely used for chemotherapy in patients with advanced colorectal cancer (CRC). However, the clinical importance of tumor dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase (DPD) expression in patients with CRC treated with 5-FU remains unclear. Materials and Methods: We investigated DPD activities in normal mucosa (N) and tumors (T) by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) in 64 surgically resected patients with Dukes' C CRC who were treated orally with postoperative adjuvant FU-based chemotherapy. We also immunohistochemically investigated DPD expression in these specimens. The clinicopathological importance of DPD activity and expression was evaluated in the patients. Results: Positive DPD expression was detected in 28 tumors (43.8%) and tumor DPD activity significantly correlated with tumor DPD immunoreactivity (p=0.0121). Further, tumor DPD activity and immunoreactivity also correlated with lymph node metastatic status (p=0.0409). The disease-free survival rate of patients with positive- tumor DPD expression was significantly worse than that of patients with negative-tumor DPD expression (39.3% vs. 72.2%, p=0.0127). However, DPD activity in tumors or normal mucosa did not correlate with patient prognosis. Tumor DPD expression appeared to be an important poor prognostic factor in patients with Dukes' C CRC by multivariate analysis (p=0.013). Conclusion: Immunohistochemical DPD expression in tumors is a useful prognostic parameter in patients with Dukes' C CRC treated with postoperative adjuvant FU-based chemotherapy.