Mucinous Colorectal Adenocarcinoma: Clinical Pathology and Treatment Options

Overview

Journal Cancer Commun (Lond)

Publisher Wiley

Specialty Oncology

Date 2019 Mar 30

PMID 30922401

Citations 128

Authors

Cong Luo

Shuyi Cen

Guojun Ding

Wei Wu

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Mucinous colorectal adenocarcinoma is a distinct subtype of colorectal cancer (CRC) characterized by the presence of abundant extracellular mucin which accounts for at least 50% of the tumor volume. Mucinous colorectal adenocarcinoma is found in 10%-20% of CRC patients and occurs more commonly in female and younger patients. Moreover, mucinous colorectal adenocarcinoma is more frequently located in the proximal colon and diagnosed at an advanced stage. Based on its molecular context, mucinous colorectal adenocarcinoma is associated with the overexpression of mucin 2 (MUC2) and mucin 5AC (MUC5AC) proteins. At the same time, it shows higher mutation rates in the fundamental genes of the RAS/MAPK and PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathways. Mucinous colorectal adenocarcinoma also shows higher rates of microsatellite instability (MSI) than non-mucinous colorectal adenocarcinoma which might correlate it with Lynch syndrome and the CpG island methylator phenotype. The prognosis of mucinous colorectal adenocarcinoma as to non-mucinous colorectal adenocarcinoma is debatable. Further, the impaired responses of mucinous colorectal adenocarcinoma to palliative or adjuvant chemotherapy warrant more studies to be performed for a specialized treatment for these patients. In this review, we discuss the molecular background and histopathology of mucinous colorectal adenocarcinoma, and provide an update on its prognosis and therapeutics from recent literatures.

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