Clinical, pathologic, and molecular features according to tumor MIR21 expression in 538 colorectal cancer cases
| Tumor MIR21 expression (quartile) | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Characteristica | Total (N = 538) | Q1 (lowest; n = 135) | Q2 (second; n = 134) | Q3 (third; n = 134) | Q4 (highest; n = 135) | Pb |
| Mean age ± SD, y | 67.6 ± 8.3 | 66.7 ± 8.2 | 67.2 ± 8.5 | 68.8 ± 8.1 | 67.5 ± 8.3 | 0.19 |
| Sex | 0.044 | |||||
| Men | 185 (34%) | 50 (37%) | 44 (33%) | 56 (42%) | 35 (26%) | |
| Women | 353 (66%) | 85 (63%) | 90 (67%) | 78 (58%) | 100 (74%) | |
| Year of diagnosis | 0.006 | |||||
| Prior to 1995 | 201 (38%) | 63 (47%) | 55 (41%) | 42 (32%) | 41 (30%) | |
| 1996–2000 | 202 (38%) | 43 (32%) | 54 (40%) | 44 (34%) | 61 (45%) | |
| 2001–2008 | 131 (24%) | 28 (21%) | 25 (19%) | 45 (34%) | 33 (25%) | |
| Family history of colorectal cancer in a first-degree relative | 0.21 | |||||
| Absent | 422 (79%) | 105 (78%) | 111 (83%) | 96 (74%) | 110 (82%) | |
| Present | 109 (21%) | 29 (22%) | 22 (17%) | 34 (26%) | 24 (18%) | |
| Tumor location | 0.30 | |||||
| Cecum | 96 (18%) | 20 (15%) | 22 (17%) | 27 (20%) | 27 (20%) | |
| Ascending to transverse colon | 173 (32%) | 39 (29%) | 40 (30%) | 43 (32%) | 51 (38%) | |
| Splenic flexure to sigmoid | 149 (28%) | 39 (29%) | 44 (33%) | 31 (23%) | 35 (26%) | |
| Rectosigmoid and rectum | 117 (22%) | 36 (27%) | 27 (20%) | 33 (25%) | 21 (16%) | |
| Disease stage | 0.009 | |||||
| I | 110 (21%) | 37 (28%) | 29 (22%) | 23 (18%) | 21 (16%) | |
| II | 173 (34%) | 44 (34%) | 45 (35%) | 44 (35%) | 40 (31%) | |
| III | 164 (32%) | 31 (24%) | 44 (34%) | 48 (39%) | 41 (32%) | |
| IV | 67 (13%) | 18 (14%) | 11 (8.5%) | 10 (8.0%) | 28 (21%) | |
| Tumor differentiation | 0.24 | |||||
| Well to moderate | 486 (91%) | 121 (90%) | 127 (95%) | 119 (89%) | 119 (88%) | |
| Poor | 51 (9.5%) | 13 (9.7%) | 7 (5.2%) | 15 (11%) | 16 (12%) | |
| MSI status | 0.26 | |||||
| MSI-low/MSS | 440 (84%) | 114 (87%) | 115 (86%) | 107 (82%) | 104 (79%) | |
| MSI-high | 86 (16%) | 17 (13%) | 18 (14%) | 24 (18%) | 27 (21%) | |
| MLH1 hypermethylation | 0.15 | |||||
| Absent | 461 (87%) | 118 (89%) | 121 (91%) | 109 (83%) | 113 (85%) | |
| Present | 69 (13%) | 14 (11%) | 12 (9.0%) | 23 (17%) | 20 (15%) | |
| CIMP status | 0.015 | |||||
| Low/negative | 440 (83%) | 113 (86%) | 119 (89%) | 108 (82%) | 100 (75%) | |
| High | 90 (17%) | 19 (14%) | 14 (11%) | 24 (18%) | 33 (25%) | |
| BRAF mutation | 0.003 | |||||
| Wild-type | 444 (84%) | 120 (90%) | 116 (88%) | 110 (82%) | 98 (75%) | |
| Mutant | 86 (16%) | 13 (9.8%) | 16 (12%) | 24 (18%) | 33 (25%) | |
| KRAS mutation | 0.11 | |||||
| Wild-type | 311 (59%) | 76 (58%) | 67 (51%) | 88 (66%) | 80 (61%) | |
| Mutant | 216 (41%) | 55 (42%) | 64 (49%) | 46 (34%) | 51 (39%) | |
| PIK3CA mutation | 0.86 | |||||
| Wild-type | 408 (83%) | 99 (84%) | 104 (82%) | 105 (82%) | 100 (85%) | |
| Mutant | 82 (17%) | 19 (16%) | 23 (18%) | 23 (18%) | 17 (15%) | |
| Mean LINE-1 methylation level (%) ± SD | 61.6 ± 9.6 | 61.6 ± 8.4 | 59.6 ± 10.4 | 62.1 ± 10.2 | 63.0 ± 9.1 | 0.032 |
Abbreviations: Q1 to Q4, quartile 1 to quartile 4.
↵aPercentage indicates the proportion of cases with a specific clinical, pathologic, or molecular feature in colorectal cancer cases with each tumor MIR21 expression. There were cases that had missing values for any of the characteristics except for age and sex.
↵bTo assess associations between the ordinal categories (first to fourth quartile) of tumor MIR21 expression and categorical data, the χ2 test was performed. To compare mean age and mean LINE-1 methylation levels, an ANOVA was performed. We adjusted the two-sided α level to 0.003 (= 0.05/14) by simple Bonferroni correction for multiple hypothesis testing.