MALAT1 might be a predictive marker of poor prognosis in patients who underwent radical resection of middle thoracic esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

BACKGROUND: Recent studies have demonstrated that MALAT1 is involved in cancer metastasis and recurrence and it is up-regulated in cervical cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma, non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and colorectal cancer. However, the role of MALAT1 in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is still unclear. METHODS: The expression of MALAT1 was evaluated in cancer tissue and paired adjacent normal tissue samples from 77 middle thoracic ESCC patients who received radical surgical resection using QRT-PCR. The correlations between the expression levels of MALAT1 and clinical-pathological features and Patients' survival were also analysed. RESULTS: MALAT1 expression was increased in ESCC tissue than in adjacent normal tissue samples (P < 0.001). MALAT1 level was positively related to pT stage (P = 0.01). Kaplan-Meier analysis showed high expression levels of MALAT1 ware correlated with poor prognosis in ESCC patients. Patients with a high level of MALAT1 had a shorter DFS and OS than those with low MALAT1 expression (P = 0.04 and 0.038, respectively). On Multivariate analysis, The HR of MALAT1 expression was 1.76 (95% CI = 0.97-3.21, P = 0.06) for DFS and 1.81 (95% CI = 0.97-3.41, P= 0.06) for OS. CONCLUSIONS: Our results showed that MALAT1 expression may serve as a predictive marker for middle thoracic ESCC patients who have been received radical resection.