The role of dual-specificity
protein phosphatase 4 (DUSP4) appears to vary with the type of malignant
tumors and is still controversial. The purpose of our study was to clarify the exact role of DUSP4 expression in colorectal
adenocarcinoma. We constructed tissue microarrays and investigated DUSP4 expression by immunohistochemistry. DUSP4 was more frequently expressed in
adenocarcinomas and lymph node/distant
metastases compared to that in normal colorectal tissues and tubular
adenomas (P < 0.001). Mean DUSP4 expression score was significantly higher in malignant
tumors than in benign lesions (P < 0.001). DUSP4 expression was significantly correlated with older age (P = 0.017), male gender (P = 0.036), larger
tumor size (P = 0.014), nonmucinous
tumor type (P = 0.023), and higher T stage (P = 0.040). Kaplan-Meier survival curves revealed a significant effect of DUSP4 expression on both overall survival and disease-free survival in AJCC stage I (P = 0.008 and P = 0.003, resp., log-rank test) and male gender (P = 0.017 and P = 0.049, resp., log-rank test). DUSP4
protein is frequently upregulated in colorectal
adenocarcinoma and may play an important role in
carcinogenesis and
cancer progression and may be a marker of adverse prognosis.