Study on the correlation between CD80/CD163 and clinical prognosis and the syndrome differentiation in patients with colorectal cancer

Background: To analyze the expression of cluster of differentiation 80 (CD80)/cluster of differentiation 163 (CD163) in colorectal cancer (CRC) patients and their correlation with the syndrome of traditional Chinese medicine, pathology and prognosis. Methods: (1) The correlation between the pathological characteristics of 232 postoperative CRC patients and the deficiency and excess syndromes of traditional Chinese medicine was analyzed using the chi-square test, Spearman's correlation, and Cox regression methods. (2) Immunohistochemistry and quantitative real-time PCR were used to detect the expression of CD80 and CD163 in cancer and paracancer tissues of CRC patients. (3) The relationships between the changes of CD80 and CD163 and the prognosis of CRC patients with deficiency syndrome. Patient survival were analyzed using cardinality and Cox regression proportional-hazards model regression. Results: (1) The degree of differentiation and tumor node metastasis stage of CRC were statistically different between patients with deficiency and excess syndromes (P < 0.05); carcinoembryonic antigen and carbohydrate antigen 19-9 were highly expressed in the excess syndrome group, and both were significantly correlated with the distribution of traditional Chinese medicine syndromes (P < 0.001); deficiency and excess syndromes, and carbohydrate antigen 19-9 were all independent factors affecting the postoperative survival of CRC patients. (2) The distribution of post-operative survival in CRC patients was significantly correlated with the distribution of the disease type (P < 0.001). (3) The expression levels of CD163 protein and message RNA were significantly higher in CRC cancer tissues than in paraneoplastic tissues (P < 0.001); whereas the expression of CD80 was significantly higher in paraneoplastic tissues than in cancer tissues (P < 0.001). (4) The expression levels of CD80/CD163 were significantly different in different parts of the tissues of patients with deficiency and excess syndromes (P < 0.001). (5) CRC patients with high CD80 expression and low CD163 expression had longer survival cycles (P < 0.001). Conclusion: The malignant progression of CRC patients with deficiency syndrome is faster than that with excess syndrome. The correlation between deficiency and excess syndromes and the expression levels of CD80 and CD163 could be an independent risk factor for the survival prognosis of patients with CRC.