A four-long noncoding RNA signature predicts survival of hepatocellular carcinoma patients

Background Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a common neoplasm located in the liver. Accumulating evidence has highlighted that long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are correlated with the survival of HCC patients. This study focuses on finding a lncRNA signature to predict the prognostic risk of HCC patients. Methods Statistical and machine learning analyses were conducted to analyze the lncRNA expression data and corresponding clinical data of 180 HCC patients collected from the public online Tanric and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) databases. Results From the training dataset, we obtained the four-lncRNA model comprising RP11-495K9.6, RP11-96O20.2, RP11-359K18.3, and LINC00556 which can divide HCC patients into two different groups with significantly different prognosis (n = 90, median 1.81, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.50-4.91 vs 8.56 years, 95% CI: 6.96-9.97, log-rank test P < .001). The test dataset confirmed the prognostic ability of the signature (n = 90, median 1.95, 95% CI: 1.14-4.08 vs 5.80 years, 95% CI: 3.11-6.82, log-rank test P = .007). Receiver operating characteristic curve displayed the better prediction efficiency of the four-lncRNA signature than the tumor/node/metastasis stage. Cox analysis showed the four-lncRNA signature was an independent predictor of HCC prognosis. Conclusion The four-lncRNA signature can be used as an independent biomarker for HCC patients to predict the prognostic risk.