Stanniocalcin-1 relates to tumor recurrence and unfavorable prognosis of urothelial bladder cancer

The role of stanniocalcin 1 (STC1) was revealed in several cancers but not urothelial bladder cancer. To explore the clinical significance of STC1 in urothelial bladder cancer, we detected STC1 expression with immunoblotting in 126 samples of urothelial bladder cancer, consisting of 97 non-muscle invasive bladder cancers (NMIBC) and 29 muscle invasive bladder cancers (MIBC). Chi-square test was used to analyze the correlation between STC1 expression and clinicopathological factors. The significance of STC1 on bladder cancer recurrence and prognosis was evaluated by univariate and multivariate analysis. As the result, we demonstrated that STC1 expression was significantly associated with advanced tumor stage (P=0.026). Additionally, STC1 expression could be identified as an independent recurrence-relative factor (P=0.013) and unfavorable prognostic factor (P=0.014). Moreover, we performed real-time PCR to detect and compare the mRNA levels between tumor and tumor-adjacent tissues, as well as between NMIBC and MIBC samples. Consequently, STC1 mRNA level in MIBC was significantly higher than that in NMIBC. In conclusion, STC1 expression could be identified as an independent biomarker which was related to easier recurrence and poorer prognosis in urothelial bladder cancer, pointing out the possibility of STC1 as a potential drug target in bladder cancer.