Wang Jian, Yang Jing, Li Bin-Bin, He Zhi-Wei
Sino-American Cancer Research Institute, Key Laboratory for Medical Molecular Diagnostics of Guangdong Province, Guangdong Medical College, Dongguan, China.
Asian Pac J Cancer Prev. 2013;14(5):2805-9. doi: 10.7314/apjcp.2013.14.5.2805.
This study aimed at investigating whether the orphan nuclear receptor NR4A2 is significantly associated with clinicopathologic features and overall survival of patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC).
Immunohistochemistry was performed to determine NR4A2 protein expression in 84 NPC tissues and 20 non-cancerous nasopharyngeal (NP) tissues. The prognostic significance of NR4A2 protein expression was evaluated using Cox proportional hazards regression models and Kaplan-Meier survival analysis.
We did not find a significant association between total NR4A2 expression and clinicopathological variables in 84 patients with NPC. However, we observed that high cytoplasmic expression of NR4A2 was significantly associated with tumor size (T classification) (P = 0.006), lymph node metastasis (N classification) (P = 0.002) and clinical stage (P = 0.017). Patients with higher cytoplasmic NR4A2 expression had a significantly lower survival rate than those with lower cytoplasmic NR4A2 expression (P = 0.004). Multivariate Cox regression analysis analysis suggested that the level of cytoplasmic NR4A2 expression was an independent prognostic indicator for overall survival of patients with NPC (P = 0.033).
High cytoplasmic expression of NR4A2 is a potential unfavorable prognostic factor for patients with NPC.
本研究旨在调查孤儿核受体NR4A2是否与鼻咽癌（NPC）患者的临床病理特征及总生存期显著相关。
采用免疫组织化学法检测84例NPC组织和20例鼻咽非癌（NP）组织中NR4A2蛋白的表达。使用Cox比例风险回归模型和Kaplan-Meier生存分析评估NR4A2蛋白表达的预后意义。
在84例NPC患者中，我们未发现NR4A2总表达与临床病理变量之间存在显著关联。然而，我们观察到NR4A2的高细胞质表达与肿瘤大小（T分级）（P = 0.006）、淋巴结转移（N分级）（P = 0.002）及临床分期（P = 0.017）显著相关。细胞质NR4A2表达较高的患者生存率明显低于细胞质NR4A2表达较低的患者（P = 0.004）。多因素Cox回归分析表明，细胞质NR4A2表达水平是NPC患者总生存期的独立预后指标（P = 0.033）。
NR4A2的高细胞质表达是NPC患者潜在的不良预后因素。
