Acts as a Promising Novel Biomarker for the Prognosis of Patients with Hepatocellular Carcinoma.

Nuclear casein kinase and cyclin-dependent kinase substrate 1 () is highly expressed in some tumors, including hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, its clinical significance in HCC prognosis is still unclear. The aim of this study was to explore the expression and prognostic value of in HCC. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction was used to detect relative expression of mRNA in HCC tissues and corresponding adjacent normal tissues. The relationship between expression and clinical characteristics of patients was analyzed by χ test. Kaplan-Meier method and Cox regression analysis were applied to estimate prognostic value of in HCC. Compared with normal ones, the expression of mRNA was significantly upregulated in HCC tissues ( < 0.001). Besides, expression was closely associated with tumor differentiation, tumor node metastasis stage, vascular invasion, and metastasis ( < 0.05). Kaplan-Meier analysis revealed that overall survival was obviously longer in HCC patients with low expression of than those with high expression (log rank test,  = 0.001). might be an independent prognostic factor for HCC patients (HR = 1.905, 95% CI = 1.106-3.283,  = 0.020). may be correlated with the progression of HCC and serve as a potential predictive factor for the prognosis of this disease.