Overexpression of long-noncoding RNA ZFAS1 decreases survival in human NSCLC patients.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of the current study was to characterize the expression of long-noncoding-RNA ZFAS1 (ZFAS1) and assess the clinical significance of ZFAS1 in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

PATIENTS AND METHODS: A total of 173 patients with NSCLC were addressed in the present retrospective study. Expression levels of ZFAS1 were detected by quantitative real-time PCR. We further analyzed the correlation between ZFAS1 and clinicopathologic features of NSCLC with X2-test. Survival rate was determined with Kaplan-Meier and statistically analyzed with the log-rank method between groups. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to analyze the prognostic significance of ZFAS1 expression.

RESULTS: ZFAS1 was upregulated in NSCLC tissues (p < 0.01) and higher expression levels of ZFAS1 were found in more advanced tumor tissues (All p < 0.05). ZFAS1 expression levels were significantly associated with tumor differentiation grade (p = 0.028), lymph node metastasis (p = 0.001) and TMN stage (p = 0.001). Furthermore, we found that patients with higher ZFAS1 expression level are associated with a poorer overall survival. Univariate and multivariate analyses indicated that high ZFAS1 expression was an independent prognostic factor for poor survival of NSCLC patients.

CONCLUSIONS: Our results illustrated the potential role of ZFAS1 as a prognostic marker for NSCLC patients.