(1) Statistically significant high levels of CK20,VEGF, CEA (p = 0.000 each) and CA19-9 (p = 0.002) in CRC patients when compared with controls; (2) Statistically significant increase in the expression of CK20 in advancing CRC stage C (p = 0.001) and with LN metastasis (p = 0.000); (3) Statistically significant increase in the expression of VEGF in advancing CRC stage C (p = 0.002), pathologic grade (p = 0.038), and with LN metastasis (p = 0.004); and (4) statistically positive correlation between CK20 and VEGF expressions, and also between these markers and CEA level.
CK 20 RT-PCR assay has been extensively used to detect isolated cancer cells in peripheral blood, lymph nodes and bone marrow samples of patients with colorectal carcinoma.
A total of 198 blood samples including 168 from colorectal carcinoma (CRC) patients and 30 from healthy volunteers were examined by quantitative real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) to evaluate the expression of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), cytokeratin 20 (CK20) and cytokeratin 19 (CK19) mRNA.
Although the present technique could not distinguish CRC from CID, the method warrants further efforts to improve sample preparation and tumor cell enrichment, which may render real-time CK20 reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction a feasible technique in identifying circulating tumor cells in peripheral blood of cancer patients.
Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and cytokeratin 20 (CK20) were chosen as markers because they are selectively expressed in epithelial cells with maintained expression in CRC.
Combining evaluation of SATB2 with CK20 and CDX2 to form a three marker panel further improved the detection of metastatic CRCs in liver biopsy tissues.
Conclusion Serum CK20 mRNA expression was significantly elevated in colorectal cancer patients which could be a promising serum biomarker for colorectal cancer diagnosis with high specificity.
Evaluation of cytokeratin 20 (CK20) specific quantitative reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (QRT-PCR) and immunohistochemistry (IHC) for detection of occult tumor cells in lymph nodes of 72 patients with colorectal carcinoma (UICC stage I and II).
However, peritoneal recurrence-free survival was not different between CEA (CK20) mRNA-positive and -negative CRC patients, in quite contrast to GC cases.
In contrast, CK20 gene expression is not an established marker for the classification of tumours and the detection of disseminated cancer cells in colorectal cancer.
In our study, we performed immunohistochemical staining with CK7 and CK20 in 52 randomly selected cases of CRC and analyzed microsatellite instability status and BRAF mutations to identify those factors that may determine the changing pattern of CK7/CK20 immunophenotype in these tumors.
In this study, we investigated the prognostic value of CTC/CSC that express carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) cytokeratin 19 (CK19), CK20 and/or CD133 (CEA/CK/CD133) mRNA in the tumor drainage blood of CRC patients with Dukes' stage B and C. We examined tumor drainage blood from 197 patients with Dukes' stage B and C CRC.
Indeed, the presence of neuropilin-2 in colorectal carcinoma cell lines was correlated with loss of epithelial markers such as cytokeratin-20 and E-cadherin and with acquisition of mesenchymal molecules such as vimentin.