Prognostic significance of Wilms tumor gene (WT1) mRNA expression in soft tissue sarcoma

BACKGROUND. There have been several recent reports that Wilms tumor gene (WT1) mRNA is overexpressed in many types of neoplasms, and those results suggested that WT1 has oncogenic properties. The objective of the current study was to evaluate the prognostic significance of WT1 mRNA expression in patients with soft tissue sarcoma. METHODS. Levels of WT1 mRNA expression were examined by quantitative, real-time reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction analysis in frozen tissue samples from 52 patients with soft tissue sarcoma. Various clinicopathologic factors were analyzed along with the disease-specific Survival rate for correlations with WT1 mRNA expression levels. RESULTS. The levels of WT1 mRNA expression in a variety of soft tissue sarcomas were significantly greater compared with the levels in normal soft tissue samples (P = .0212). No significant correlation was observed between the level of WT1 mRNA expression and clinicopathologic factors, including gender, age, primary tumor site, tumor depth, tumor size, histologic grade, and distant metastasis at initial presentation. The disease-specific survival rate for patients with high WT1 mRNA expression levels was found significantly poorer compared with the rate for patients with low WT1 mRNA expression levels (P = .0182). Moreover, multivariate analysis indicated that a high WT1 mRNA expression level was an independent, adverse prognostic factor for disease-specific survival (hazards ratio, 2.6; P = .0488). CONCLUSIONS. WT1 mRNA expression level can serve as a potent prognostic indicator in soft tissue sarcoma patients.