To study the prognostic value of Wnt7a expression in colon cancer tissue and its relationship with pathological characteristics.

Colon cancer tissues and adjacent tissues were collected during the operation from 84 patients with colon cancer from May 2016 to May 2018 in the Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi University of Science and Technology. The expression of Wnt7a protein was detected by immunohistochemical method. The Cox proportional hazard model was used to analyze the risk factors that affect the prognosis of patients base on 2 years survival follow up. The ROC curve was used to analyze the predictive value of Wnt7a protein expression in colon cancer tissues.

Colon cancer tissue had more higher expression case of Wnt7a protein compared with adjacent tissues (61.90% vs 14.29%, P<0.001). Expression level of Wnt7a was positively correlated with tumor differentiation, TNM staging, and lymph node metastasis (P<0.05). There were 25 deaths in the 2-year follow-up, of whom 20 died in the high expression group and 5 died in the low expression group. The mortality rate of the high expression group was significantly higher than that of the low expression group (38.46% vs 15.63%, P=0.026). The overall survival time of low expression group was longer than that high expression group (P=0.341). Cox multivariate regression analysis showed that tumor TNM staging (95% CI: 0.452-0.923), lymph node metastasis (95% CI: 0.488-0.942), Wnt7a (95% CI: 1.135-4.063) were independent risk factors affecting the survival of colon cancer patients. ROC curve analysis showed that the AUC of Wnt7a predicting prognosis was 0.837 (95% CI: 0.739-0.934), with sensitivity as 80.00% and specificity as 78.00%.

Wnt7a protein is overexpressed in colon cancer tissues and has a good prognosis value for overall survival of patients.