Credit: Lab of Piero Dalerba, MD/Columbia University Medical Center
Stage II colon cancers, which are typically treated with surgery alone, were found to vary in their expression of the CDX2 gene. Those that do not express the gene (left) were found to have a worse prognosis than those that do (right). The findings provide clinicians with a biomarker that could be used to predict which patients with Stage II disease are likely to benefit from postsurgical, or adjuvant, chemotherapy.