In this issue

Excerpt

In this issue, several authors address prognostic factors in a variety of different tumors. Prognostic factors are a favorite subject for histopathologists with a desire to publish. Unfortunately, few make it to real application in clinical practice. Why we still publish these papers ? Well, up front it is difficult to discern between those that will make it and those that will not. In addition, application in daily practice is not the only reason to search for associations between marker expression and prognosis. Through this panoply of marker studies knowledge is gained on new features of tumors, contributing to understanding biology or a stepping stone towards further validation. Along these lines Betge et al (DOI10.1007/s00428-016-1970-5) studied expression of gastro-intestinal mucins (MUC1, MUC2, MUC5AC and MUC6) in colorectal cancer. Their approach was classical : immunohistochemistry on a tissue micro-array and correlation with progression-free and cancer-specific survival. It turns out that in some colorectal cancers mucin production goes ‘off-beat’ : about a quarter loose expression of intestinal MUC2 while around 10 % gain expression of gastric mucin (either MUC5AC or MUC6). Strikingly, loss of MUC2 was associated with poor outcome while gain of gastric mucin expression was assiated with good prognosis. Mechanisms are not addressed in this paper but why some colorectal cancers convert to the production of aberrant mucinss merits to be further studied. …