BACKGROUND: Colon cancer is one of the most common malignant cancers and causes millions of deaths each year. There are still no effective treatments for colon cancer patients who are at advanced stage. Tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) might be a good therapy target due to its widely-accepted roles in regulating multiple important biological processes, especially in promoting inflammation.

MATERIAL AND METHODS: We evaluated the expression of TNF-α in 108 human colon cancer tissue samples and 2 colon cancer cell lines (CT26 and HCT116), and analyzed its prognostic values. Further, we explored the roles and mechanism of anti-TNF-α treatment in combination with chemotherapy in vitro and in vivo.

RESULTS: We found that TNF-α was highly expressed in colon cancer cell lines. The survival analysis and Cox regression analysis indicated that high TNF-α was an independent adverse prognosticator of colon cancer. In addition, anti-TNF-α treatment enhanced the effects of chemotherapy in the xenograft mouse model through inducing ADCC and CDC effects.

CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that TNF-α is an independent adverse prognosticator of colon cancer, and anti-TNF-α might benefit colon cancer patients.

Keywords: Colorectal Neoplasms