Rankl expression predicts poor prognosis in gastric cancer patients: results from a retrospective and single-center analysis.

Abstract

The receptor activator of nuclear factor κB ligand (RANKL)/RANK pathway plays an important role in the prognosis of several solid tumor types, but its role in gastric cancer prognosis has been poorly characterized. A total of 116 gastric cancer patients who underwent surgical resection were enrolled in this study. Expressions of RANKL and RANK in gastric cancer tissues were detected using immunohistochemical staining. Thirty-eight patients (33%) showed a high level of RANKL expression and 61 patients (53%) showed a high level of RANK expression. There was a positive correlation between expressions of RANKL and RANK (P=0.014, r=0.221). A high level of RANKL expression indicated shorter overall survival (OS) (P=0.008), and was associated with a higher pathological tumor/lymph node/metastasis (pTNM) stage (P=0.035), while no significant correlation was detected between RANK expression and clinicopathological parameters. RANKL also predicted poor prognosis in patients with high RANK expression (P=0.008) and Bormann's type III/IV (P=0.002). Furthermore, RANKL expression correlated with pTNM stage according to high RANK expression (P=0.009), while no significance was found in patients with low RANK expression (P=1.000). Together, our results revealed that high expression of RANKL could predict worse outcomes in gastric cancer especially combined with RANK detection, and thereby this pathway could be a useful prognostic indicator of gastric cancer.

• Authors: X Zhang, Y Song, N Song, L Zhang, Y Wang, D Li, Z Wang, X Qu, Y Liu
• Journal: Brazilian journal of medical and biological research = Revista brasileira de pesquisas medicas e biologicas (Braz J Med Biol Res) Vol. 51 Issue 3 Pg. e6265 (Jan 11 2018) ISSN: 1414-431X [Electronic] Brazil
• PMID: 29340518 (Publication Type: Journal Article)

Chemical References

• Neoplasm Proteins
• RANK Ligand
• TNFSF11 protein, human

Topics

• Adenocarcinoma (metabolism, mortality, pathology, surgery)
• China (epidemiology)
• Female
• Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic
• Humans
• Immunohistochemistry
• Male
• Middle Aged
• Neoplasm Grading
• Neoplasm Proteins (metabolism)
• Neoplasm Staging
• Prognosis
• RANK Ligand (metabolism)
• Retrospective Studies
• Statistics, Nonparametric
• Stomach Neoplasms (metabolism, mortality, pathology, surgery)