Objective To study the presence or absence of vasculogenic mimicry(VM) in rectal adenocarcinoma by some relevant data, and explore its clinical and pathological significance.

MethodsThe clinicopathological data of 176 patients with rectal adenocarcinoma were collected.The VM was detected using immunohistochemical EliVision^TM plus method, and the cases were divided into the positive and negative groups.The relationship between VM and clinicopathological parameters was analyzed.

Results Among 176 tissue samples, the positive expression of VM in 35 cases was identified, and the positive rate of which was 19.89%.The differences of the formation of VM among different gender, age and length of tumor were not statistically significant(P>0.05).The positive rates of VM in poor differentiation group, vascular and nerve invasion group and lymph node metastasis group significantly increased(P < 0.01).The Results of multivariate regression analysis showed that the survival time of patients became short with the increasing of the positive rate of VM(P < 0.01), the survival time of patients with lymph node metastasis was shorter than that in patients without lymph node metastasis(P < 0.01), and the survival time of patients with vascular and nerve invasion was shorter than that in patients without vascular and nerve invasion(P < 0.05).

Conclusions VM is present in rectal adenocarcinoma, and the formation of VM is of great significance to the occurrence, development and prognosis of rectal adenocarcinoma.