Basic Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2017. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Oncol. May 15, 2017; 9(5): 209-217
Published online May 15, 2017. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.v9.i5.209
Extramural vascular invasion and response to neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy in rectal cancer: Influence of the CpG island methylator phenotype
Jeremy Stuart Williamson, Huw Geraint Jones, Namor Williams, Anthony Paul Griffiths, Gareth Jenkins, John Beynon, Dean Anthony Harris
Jeremy Stuart Williamson, Huw Geraint Jones, John Beynon, Dean Anthony Harris, Department of General and Colorectal Surgery, Singleton Hospital, Swansea SA2 8QA, United Kingdom
Namor Williams, Anthony Paul Griffiths, Department of Pathology, Singleton Hospital, Swansea SA2 8QA, United Kingdom
Gareth Jenkins, Department of Life Sciences, Swansea University, Swansea SA2 8PP, United Kingdom
Author contributions: All authors substantially contributed to the conception and design of the study as well as drafting and approving the final manuscript; Williamson JS and Jones HG contributed to the acquisition of data from experimental studies; all authors contributed to the analysis and interpretation of data.
Institutional review board statement: All patients in this study were treated in the South West Wales Oncology Centre (Singleton Hospital, Swansea, United Kingdom) and ethical approval for this study was granted by South West Wales REC (Project Ref No:11/WA/0256). Consent was not required in accordance with the Human Tissue Act 2004 (chapter 30).
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors declare no conflict of interest.
Data sharing statement: Technical appendix and data set are available from the corresponding author at dean.a.harris2@wales.nhs.uk. Consent for data sharing was not obtained but the presented data are anonymised and the risk of identification is low.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Dr. Jeremy Stuart Williamson, Department of General and Colorectal Surgery, Singleton Hospital, Sketty Lane, Swansea SA2 8QA, United Kingdom. dean.a.harris@wales.nhs.uk
Telephone: +44-1792-205666
Received: July 26, 2016
Peer-review started: July 30, 2016
First decision: September 29, 2016
Revised: December 20, 2016
Accepted: March 23, 2017
Article in press: March 24, 2017
Published online: May 15, 2017
Processing time: 288 Days and 21.5 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: There is wide and unpredictable response of rectal cancer to neoadjuvant therapy which carries significant side effects and relies on limited pre-treatment risk stratification. Methylation specific PCR was used to determine CpG island Methylator phenotype (CIMP) status in 160 rectal cancers and compared with response to therapy, clinical and pathological outcomes. CIMP status was not directly related to tumour regression but was related to extramural vascular invasion which confers an adverse survival risk.