@conference{
author = "Kožik, Bojana and Kokanov, Nikola and Knežević-Ušaj, Slavica and Nikolić, Ivan and Davidović, Radoslav and Jovanović Ćupić, Snežana and Krajnović, Milena",
year = "2017",
abstract = "Background: Preoperative chemoradiotherapy (CRT) represents the standard treatment for patients with locally advanced rectal cancer. Since only subset of patients has benefit from this preoperative treatment, development of reliable molecular biomarkers is required. In this retrospective study, we investigated methylation status of p16 and p14 tumor suppressor genes in locally advanced rectal cancer, in order to evaluate their potential predictive and prognostic role. Methods: Methylation-specific PCR was used to examine methylation status of p16 and p14 genes in pretherapeutic and preoperative biopsy specimens of 60 patients with locally advanced rectal cancer. Results: Aberrant methylation of p16 and p14 genes was detected in 43.3% (26/60) and 39.6% (23/58) of cases, respectively. In general, p16 and p14 methylation status did not affect the response to CRT, recurrences rate and overall survival. However, patients with simultaneous presence of either p16 or p14 methylation and high vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) expression showed significantly worse response to CRT (p = 0.005 and p = 0.038, respectively). In addition, tendency toward more frequent local recurrences and metastasis was observed in cases with concurrent presence of methylation of either p16 or p14 gene and high VEGF expression (p = 0.075 and p = 0.072, respectively), while patients with both of p16 methylation and high VEGF expression had significantly shorter overall survival (p = 0.010). Conclusion: Obtained results strongly suggest the importance of p16 and p14 methylation analyses in combination with other parameters, particularly VEGF expression, in order to better predict treatment response and patient outcome.",
publisher = "Belgrade : University of Belgrade, Faculty of Biology",
journal = "CoMBoS1 - 1st Congress of Molecular Biologists of Serbia with international participation : Book of abstracts",
title = "Combined analysis of p16 and p14 methylation and VEGF expression status could predict more aggressive phenotype of locally advanced rectal cancers",
pages = "100-100",
url = "https://hdl.handle.net/21.15107/rcub_vinar_12805"
}