Purpose Very few studies have assessed tumor budding (TB) and poorly differentiated cell clusters (PDCs) simultaneously in colorectal cancers (CRCs). The goal of this study was to establish a correlation between these two pertinent histological features and to reinforce the importance of their incorporation in routine histopathological reporting of CRC cases as a means to predict clinical outcome.

Methods Resection specimens of colorectal carcinoma were included in the study. Patients who received presurgical therapy, or refused consent were excluded. PDC and TB were evaluated in routine hematoxylin and eosin-stained histopathological sections taken from the advancing edge of the tumor. TB and PDC were reported by selecting a “hotspot” chosen after review of all available slides with invasive tumor. It was then followed by their correlation with other known prognostic factors.

Results Spearman's rho calculator for strength of association between TB and PDC as well as association of TB and PDC individually with known prognostic factors revealed statistical significance. Correlation of TB and PDC with histologic grade, primary tumor (pT), and regional lymph node (pN) stage was done based on one-way analysis of variance calculator, which yielded statistically significant results.

Conclusion Evaluation of these two histological parameters in the same hotspot field at the tumor invasive front plays a fundamental role in the definition of cancer aggressiveness and prediction of tumor behavior.

S.S. helped in study conception and design, material preparation, data collection, and analysis, written first draft of the manuscript; whereas R.G. and S.C. was involved in study conception and design, material preparation, data collection, and analysis.

Informed consent was obtained from all participants included in the study.

The Institutional Ethics Committee has approved the study.

Received: 15 July 2023

Accepted: 11 June 2024

Article published online:
03 July 2024

© 2024. MedIntel Services Pvt Ltd. This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

Thieme Medical and Scientific Publishers Pvt. Ltd.
A-12, 2nd Floor, Sector 2, Noida-201301 UP, India