Expression of phosphatase regenerating liver 3 is an independent prognostic indicator for gastric cancer

AIM: To investigate the prognostic significance of phosphatase regenerating liver 3 (PRL-3) protein expression in gastric cancer. METHODS: PRL-3 expression in paraffin-embedded tumor specimens from 293 patients with gastric cancer was studied retrospectively by immunohistochemistry. Monoclonal antibody specifically against PRL-3, 3136, was obtained with hybridoma technique. RESULTS: Positive PRL-3 expression was detected in 43.3% (127 of 293) of gastric cancer cases. High expression of PRL-3 was positively correlated with tumor size, depth of invasion, vascular/lymphatic invasion, lymph node metastasis, high TNM stage and tumor recurrence. Patients with positive PRL-3 expression had a significantly lower 5-year survival rate than those with negative expression (28.3% vs 51.9%, P < 0.0001). Patients who received curative surgery, and with positive PRL-3 expression had a significant shorter overall survival and disease-free disadvantage over patients with negative expression (hazard ratio of 16.7 and 16.6, respectively; P < 0.0001 for both). Multivariate analysis revealed that PRL-3 expression was an independent prognostic indicator for overall and disease-free survival of gastric cancer patients, particularly for survival in TNM stage 111 patients. CONCLUSION: PRO expression is a new independent prognostic indicator to predict the potential of recurrence and survival in patients with gastric cancer at the time of tumor resection. (C) 2009 The WJG Press and Baishideng. All rights reserved.