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Unselective Measurement of Tumor‐to‐Stroma Proportion in Colon Cancer at the Invasion Front– an Elusive Prognostic Factor. Original Patient Data and Review of the Literature
Fekete, Z.; Ignat, P.; Resiga, A.C.; Todor, N.; Muntean, A.-S.; Resiga, L.; Curcean, S.; Lazar, G.; Gherman, A.; Eniu, D. Unselective Measurement of Tumor-to-Stroma Proportion in Colon Cancer at the Invasion Front—An Elusive Prognostic Factor: Original Patient Data and Review of the Literature. Diagnostics2024, 14, 836.
Fekete, Z.; Ignat, P.; Resiga, A.C.; Todor, N.; Muntean, A.-S.; Resiga, L.; Curcean, S.; Lazar, G.; Gherman, A.; Eniu, D. Unselective Measurement of Tumor-to-Stroma Proportion in Colon Cancer at the Invasion Front—An Elusive Prognostic Factor: Original Patient Data and Review of the Literature. Diagnostics 2024, 14, 836.
Fekete, Z.; Ignat, P.; Resiga, A.C.; Todor, N.; Muntean, A.-S.; Resiga, L.; Curcean, S.; Lazar, G.; Gherman, A.; Eniu, D. Unselective Measurement of Tumor-to-Stroma Proportion in Colon Cancer at the Invasion Front—An Elusive Prognostic Factor: Original Patient Data and Review of the Literature. Diagnostics2024, 14, 836.
Fekete, Z.; Ignat, P.; Resiga, A.C.; Todor, N.; Muntean, A.-S.; Resiga, L.; Curcean, S.; Lazar, G.; Gherman, A.; Eniu, D. Unselective Measurement of Tumor-to-Stroma Proportion in Colon Cancer at the Invasion Front—An Elusive Prognostic Factor: Original Patient Data and Review of the Literature. Diagnostics 2024, 14, 836.
Abstract
Tumor to stroma ratio is a highly debated prognostic factor in the management of several solid tumors and there is no universal agreement on its practicality. In our study we proposed to confirm or dismiss the hypothesis that a simple measurement of stroma quantity is an easy-to-use and strong prognostic tool. We have included 74 consecutive patients with colorectal cancer who underwent primary curative abdominal surgery. The tumors have been grouped into stroma-poor (stroma <10%), medium-stroma (between 10 and 50%) and stroma-rich (over 50%). The proportion of tumor stroma ranged from 5% to 70% with a median of 25%. Very few, only 6.8% of patients had stroma-rich tumors, 4% stroma-poor tumors and 89.2%tumors with a medium quantity of stroma. The proportion of stroma, at any cut-off, had no statistically significant influence on the disease specific survival. This can be explained by the low proportion of stroma-rich tumors in our patient group and the inverse correlation of stroma proportion with tumor grade. The real-life proportion of stroma-rich tumors and the complex nature of the stroma-tumor interaction has to be further elucidated.
Keywords
fibrosis; tumor stroma; stroma to tumor ratio; pathology markers; colon cancer; adjuvant treatment; invasion front
Subject
Medicine and Pharmacology, Oncology and Oncogenics
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
