Purpose: The association hepatocyte growth factor receptor (Met) tyrosine kinase with prognosis and survival in colon cancer is unclear, due in part to the limitation of detection methods used. In particular, conventional chromagenic immunohistochemistry (IHC) has several limitations including the inability to separate compartmental measurements. Measurement of membrane, cytoplasm, and nuclear levels of Met could offer a superior approach to traditional IHC.

Experimental Design: Fluorescent-based IHC for Met was done in 583 colon cancer patients in a tissue microarray format. Using curvature and intensity-based image analysis, the membrane, nuclear, and cytoplasm were segmented. Probability distributions of Met within each compartment were determined, and an automated scoring algorithm was generated. An optimal score cutpoint was calculated using 500-fold crossvalidation of a training and test data set. For comparison with conventional IHC, a second array from the same tissue microarray block was 3,3′-diaminobenzidine immunostained for Met.

Results: In crossvalidated and univariate Cox analysis, the membrane relative to cytoplasm Met score was a significant predictor of survival in stage I (hazard ratio, 0.16; P = 0.006) and in stage II patients (hazard ratio, 0.34; P ≤ 0.0005). Similar results were found with multivariate analysis. Met in the membrane alone was not a significant predictor of outcome in all patients or within stage. In the 3,3′-diaminobenzidine–stained array, no associations were found with Met expression and survival.

Conclusions: These data indicate that the relative subcellular distribution of Met, as measured by novel automated image analysis, may be a valuable biomarker for estimating colon cancer prognosis.