Fatty Acids in Habitual Diet, Plasma Phospholipids, and Tumour and Normal Colonic Biopsies in Young Colorectal Cancer Patients

Table 5

Correlation between selected polyunsaturated fatty acids and fatty acid ratios in tumour and normal mucosal biopsies and plasma phospholipids (PL) EPA+DHA and LA+AA concentrations (weight%) in colorectal cancer patients (𝑛=32)^a.

	𝑟
	normal mucosa (𝑛=32)	tumour tissue (𝑛=32)
EPA + DHA concentration in plasma PL correlated with tissue concentration of
18:2𝑛-6 (LA)	−0.30	0.05
20:4𝑛-6 (AA)	0.43^b	−0.05
Sum LA + AA	0.15	0.001
20:5𝑛-3 (EPA)	0.44^c	0.51^c
22:6𝑛-3 (DHA)	0.71^d	0.44^c
Sum EPA + DHA	0.66^d	0.50^c
Ratio AA/EPA	−0.07	−0.55^d
Ratio 𝑛-3/𝑛-6 fatty acids	0.77^d	0.70^d
LA + AA concentration in plasma PL correlated with tissue concentration of
18:2𝑛-6 (LA)	0.50^c	0.12
20:4𝑛-6 (AA)	−0.22	0.24
Sum LA + AA	0.14	0.25
20:5𝑛-3 (EPA)	−0.17	−0.20
22:6𝑛-3 (DHA)	−0.33	−0.18
Sum EPA + DHA	−0.29	−0.20
Ratio AA/EPA	−0.07	0.36^b
Ratio 𝑛-3/𝑛-6 fatty acids	−0.47^c	−0.42^b

^aAbbreviations are as follows: AA: arachidonic acid; DHA: docosahexaenoic acid; EPA: eicosapentaenoic acid; LA: linoleic acid; PL: phospholipids; 𝑟: Pearson correlation coefficient.
^bSignificant correlation (𝑃<0.05).
^cSignificant correlation (𝑃≤0.01).
^dSignificant correlation (𝑃=0.001).