Urokinase Type Plasminogen Activator Receptor Expression in Colorectal Neoplasms

Abstract

Background—The urokinase type plasminogen activator receptor (uPAR) may play a critical role in cancer invasion and metastasis. Aims—To study the involvement of uPAR in colorectal carcinogenesis. Methods— fourty four cases of colorectal adenocarcinoma were obtained and diagnosed as colonic carcinoma with it's grade received as formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue in AL-Nasiriyah teaching hospital with cases of carcinoma also 6 cases of normal endoscopic biopsies used as control –ve and 10 cases of adenoma with dysplastic changes all these cases stain by immunohistochemical methods for expression and localisation of uPAR. Results_ all the cases of endoscopic biopsies were –ve for these receptors so used as –ve control, while cases of adenoma 3 out of 10 cases showing focal positivity in areas of dysplasia, while the cases of invasive carcinoma showing diffused positivity and the case percent of positivity depend on grade so high grade tumor showing a high percentage of positivity.     Conclusions—Colorectal adenoma uPAR, expressed essentially in dysplastic epithelial cells, was upregulated with increasing severity of atypia, and increased notably during the critical transition from severe dysplasic adenoma to invasive carcinoma. These findings implicate uPAR expression in the invasive and metastatic processes of colorectal cancer.