Presence of bone marrow micro-metastases in stage I-III colon cancer patients is associated with worse disease-free and overall survival.

ABSTRACT: The prognostic significance of bone marrow micro-metastases (BMM) in colon cancer patients remains unclear. We conducted a prospective cohort study with long-term follow-up to evaluate the relevance of BMM as a prognostic factor for disease free (DFS) and overall survival (OS) in stage I-III colon cancer patients. In this prospective multicenter cohort study 144 stage I-III colon cancer patients underwent bone marrow aspiration from both iliac crests prior to open oncologic resection. The bone marrow aspirates were stained with the pancytokeratin antibody A45-B/B3 and analyzed for the presence of epithelial tumor cells. DFS and OS were analyzed using a Cox proportional hazard model and robust standard errors to account for clustering in the multicenter setting. Median overall follow-up was

SUBMITTER: Viehl CT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5430093 | biostudies-literature | 2017 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature