title: High expression of integrin-linked kinase predicts aggressiveness and poor prognosis in patients with gastric cancer.
abstract: Integrin-linked kinase (ILK), an intracellular serine/threonine protein kinase, has been reported to be highly expressed in many human malignancies, including gastric cancer. However, the prognostic significance of ILK expression in gastric cancer remains to be elucidated. In the present study, ILK expression in 95 gastric tumor tissues and 30 adjacent non-cancerous gastric mucosa was evaluated by immunohistochemistry and correlated with clinicopathological characteristics and patients' outcome. The results showed that high ILK expression was observed in 47.4% (45/95) of gastric cancer tissues, but only in 20.0% (6/30) of adjacent gastric mucosa. Clinicopathological analysis indicated that high ILK expression was significantly associated with poor tumor differentiation (P=0.024), advanced TNM stage (P=0.006), tumor invasion (P=0.001), and lymph node metastasis (P=0.014). Kaplan-Meier survival curves demonstrated that patients with high ILK expression had substantially shorter overall survival that those with low ILK expression (P=0.043, log-rank test). Furthermore, Cox multivariate regression analysis identified ILK expression as an independent prognostic factor for overall survival of gastric cancer patients (hazard ratio, 1.95; 95% confidence interval, 1.02-3.13; P=0.026). In conclusion, our data suggest that ILK may contribute to the malignant progression of gastric cancer and serve as a novel prognostic indicator for gastric cancer patients.
authors: Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery and Cancer Center, The Fourth Affiliated Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang 110032, People's Republic of China; Department of Surgical Oncology, Liaoning Cancer Hospital and Institute, Shenyang 110042, People's Republic of China.
authors: Xiaohu
authors: X
authors: Gu
authors: Department of Internal Oncology, Liaoning Cancer Hospital and Institute, Shenyang 110042, People's Republic of China.
authors: Xiaojing
authors: X
authors: Xing
authors: Department of Surgical Oncology, Liaoning Cancer Hospital and Institute, Shenyang 110042, People's Republic of China.
authors: Wei
authors: W
authors: Yang
authors: Department of Anesthesiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian 116011, People's Republic of China.
authors: Jinyang
authors: J
authors: Hu
authors: Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery and Cancer Center, The Fourth Affiliated Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang 110032, People's Republic of China. Electronic address: daidongqiu@hotmail.com.
authors: Dongqiu
authors: D
authors: Dai
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D018450:Disease Progression; D005260:Female; D015972:Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D011379:Prognosis; D017346:Protein Serine-Threonine Kinases / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D013274:Stomach Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D000099200:Scaffold Protein ILK
chemical_list: D017346:Protein Serine-Threonine Kinases; D000099200:Scaffold Protein ILK
keywords: Aggressiveness; Gastric cancer; Integrin-linked kinase; Prognosis