ndrg4 methylation change: a promising biomarker in colorectal cancer diagnosis

Introduction: colorectal cancer (crc) is one of the most widespread cancers across the world. notwithstanding the diagnoses and treatments developed over the past four decades, patients' survival rate has improved moderately; and yet, it still has a 5-year survival rate of less than 50%. in this study, hypermethylation of the ndrg4 gene was evaluated as a biomarker in crc screening. materials and methods: 70 samples were examined in this case-control study (45 crc patients versus 25 healthy controls) totally, and methylation- specific pcr (polymerase chain reaction) technique was used to investigate the ndrg4 methylation situation in plasma samples. results: the mean age in the control group and crc patients was 58.4±3.4 years and 64.6±4.4 years, respectively. the male to female ratio in the control group and crc patients was 1.5:1 and 1.1:1, respectively. gastrointestinal disease history was positive in 12% and 33% of patients in the control group and crc patients. in this study, ndrg4 gene hypermethylation was observed in 53.3% of patients, while it was shown in only 23.3% of healthy controls. conclusion: the results showed that ndrg4 could be a prognostic biomarker in crc diagnosis and screen as a noninvasive blood-based biomarker.