Clinical prognostic value of A FOXM1 related long non-coding RNA expression in gastric cancer.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to explore FOXM1-related LncRNA 1(FRLnc1) expression level in gastric cancer (GC) and demonstrate its association with the prognosis.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: A total of 173 GC patients from Affiliated Hospital of Jining Medical University were enrolled in the study. GC tissue samples were quantified for FRLnc1 expression level using quantitative PCR (qPCR) method. The relevance between FRLnc1 expression and clinicopathological features was determined by x2-test. The association between FRLnc1 expression and overall survival was estimated by the Kaplan-Meier method. Multivariate and univariate analysis were performed to explore whether FRLnc1 was an independent prognostic factor for GC patients.

RESULTS: We found that FRLnc1 expression was higher in GC tissues than corresponding adjacent tissues (p < 0.01). Increased FRLnc1 expression was associated with depth of tumor (p = 0.004), differentiation degree (p = 0.032), distant metastasis (p = 0.007), TNM stage (p = 0.006) and lymph node metastasis (p = 0.012). More importantly, Kaplan-Meier survival analysis demonstrated that overall patient survival for those with low FRLnc1 expression was significantly longer than those patients with high FRLnc1 expression (p < 0.001). Multivariate analysis suggested that FRLnc1 expression was an independent prognostic marker for survival in patients with GC.

CONCLUSIONS: The data presented in this work firstly suggested that FRLnc1 may be a prognostic predictor in GC.