Association of TNF- Ression With Clinicopathological Variables and Survival in Colorectal Cancer Patients: A Study From Western Indian Region

Tumor Necrosis Factor alpha (TNF-α), a proinflammatory cytokine, is recognized as a significant contributor to tumor progression.Higher TNF-α expression has been reported to promote growth and invasion, and correlated with unfavorable clinical outcomes in colorectal cancer (CRC) patients.Therefore, present study investigated TNF-α mRNA expression in CRC patients and assessed its correlation with clinicopathological parameters and prognosis in western region of India.Total 40 primary CRC patients were enrolled and tumor tissues were collected.Out of 40, 10 adjacent normal tissues were collected as controls.TNF-α mRNA expression was evaluated by reverse transcription real time PCR (RT-qPCR) method and relative TNF-α expression was determined by 2 -ΔΔCT method.The data was analyzed using SPSS software.Out of 40 CRC patients, upregulation of TNF-α mRNA expression was detected in 63% of patients, while 37% showed TNF-α downregulation as compared to controls.Further, relative TNF-α expression was significantly higher in patients with positive lymphnode status (P=0.041),advanced stage (P=0.041),and larger tumor size (P=0.032).Relative TNF-α expression was not significantly associated with relapse-free survival (P=0.873) and overall survival (P=0.581).The study concludes that higher TNF-α mRNA expression correlated with biologically aggressive prognostic factors suggesting its role as a useful biomarker to identify high-risk group of CRC patients.