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VIEW ALL NEWSTumoral LINE-1 hypomethylation tied to poorer colon cancer prognosis
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Quantification of cellular DNA methylation in repetitive long interspersed nucleotide element-1 (LINE-1) sequences can be used to forecast survival in patients with colon cancer, researchers report in the December 3rd issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
As lead investigator Dr. Shuji Ogino told Reuters Health, "Global DNA hypomethylation as measured in LINE-1 repetitive DNA sequence is predictive of inferior survival of patients with colon cancer."
Dr. Ogino of Harvard Medical School, Boston, and colleagues used the approach to evaluate 643 colon cancer tissue specimens obtained from participants in two independent prospective cohort studies.
There was a significant linear association between hypomethylation and both cancer-related and all-cause mortality. For a 30% decrease in LINE-1 methylation, the hazard ratios for these outcomes were 2.37 and 1.85.
The researchers found that the association was consistent across both cohorts and across strata of clinical and tumoral characteristics.
Given these findings, Dr. Ogino concluded that "LINE-1 methylation measurement will be useful as a prognostic test for colon cancer in the near future."
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