Expression of the secretory component (SC) of IgA was investigated in normal colonic mucosa, in adenomas and in I88 colon carcinomas. Of the carcinoma patients, 149 underwent potentially curative surgical treatment. In particular, it was of interest to determine whether pathohistological or clinical parameters showed any association with the mode of SC expression in carcinomas. Irrespective of anatomical site, normal colon mucosa was generally SC-positive. Normal epithelium, however, displayed microheterogeneity in SC content, which was related to columnar and goblet-cell type and microtopographical site, implying a subtle regulatory mechanism. In contrast to adenomas, which were evenly SC-positive and showed focally weak SC expression in only 2 out of 20 cases, carcinomas were rather heterogeneous in their SC-expression pattern. In all, 48 carcinomas were entirely positive, 48 were completely negative and the remaining 92 showed various patterns of heterogeneous SC expression. The mode of SC expression was correlated with tumor staging, i.e., complete absence of SC was more often found in Dukes' C and D groups. In addition, the presence of SC in carcinomas was statistically correlated with the mucinous type. The mode of SC expression was not correlated with tumor grading and tumor location. The rate of disease-free survival and the risk of tumor-related death revealed a significant correlation with the mode of SC expression when patients who had received potentially curative or non-curative treatment were included in the log-rank test. Absence or low levels of SC expression were more frequent in the group that suffered a tumor relapse than in the recurrencefree cohort. Tumor-related death was more frequent when primaries were characterized by absence or low levels of SC expression. We conclude that absence or low levels of SC expression are an unfavorable prognostic variable in colorectal carcinoma.
o I994 Wiley-Liss, Inc.