Prognostic value of hedgehog signaling pathway in patients with colon cancer

Hedgehog signaling pathway plays an important role in normal mammalian gastrointestinal development and is implicated in the oncogenesis of various tumors. However, its correlation with progression and prognosis of colon cancer has not been well documented. This study was designed to investigate expression patterns of related proteins in hedgehog signaling pathway in colon cancer to elucidate its prognostic value in this tumor. Using human colon cancer and their corresponding non-diseased colon from 228 patients’ biopsies, the expression of sonic hedgehog, its receptor Patched, and downstream transcription factor Gli1 was investigated by immunohistochemical staining to assess their association with the clinicopathological characteristics of colon cancer. Disease-free survival and overall survival were examined by Kaplan–Meier estimates and the log-rank test. Prognostic factors were determined by multivariate Cox analysis. One hundred and thirty-eight patients (59.6%) had sonic hedgehog-positive tumors and that the disease-free survival (43.5 vs. 73.3%, P < 0.001), and overall survival rates (50.7 vs. 88.9%, P < 0.001) of patients with sonic hedgehog-positive tumors were much lower than those of patients with sonic hedgehog-negative tumors. In addition, 163 patients (71.5%) had Patched-positive tumors, and the disease-free survival (41.7 vs. 76.9%, P < 0.001) and overall survival rates (55.2 vs. 80.0%, P = 0.002) of patients with Patched-positive tumors were also lower than those of patients with Patched-negative tumors. Moreover, positive Gli1 expression had a bad effect on the disease-free survival (41.9 vs. 73.2%, P < 0.001) and overall survival rate of patients with colon cancer (50.0 vs. 89.3%, P < 0.001). In a multivariate analysis, sonic hedgehog, Patched, and Gli1 status were indicators for poor disease-free survival and overall survival. These results have shown that the increasing expression of sonic hedgehog, Patched, and Gli1 are indicators for a poor prognosis in patients with colon cancer. This is the first report describing about the relationship between hedgehog signaling pathway and the prognosis of colon cancer.