Nephroblastoma overexpressed gene expression and its prognostic implications of clinical outcomes in renal cell carcinoma patients.

The nephroblastoma overexpressed gene (NOV) expressions in tissues and organs has become abnormal during tumorigenesis and progression. This study intended to investigate the correlation between clinical outcomes and NOV expression in renal cell carcinoma (RCC) patients. Fifty RCC patients who attended the hospital from January 2013 to January 2015 were enrolled in this study. NOV expression in cancerous tissues and adjacent non-tumor (ANT) renal tissues of RCC patients was detected by immunohistochemistry (IHC). According to the percentage of NOV-positive cells, cases were divided into NOV-positive and NOV-negative groups. The correlations between age, gender, disease course, tumor diameter, pathological grades (WHO/ISUP grading system) or tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) staging and NOV-positive rate were determined. Kaplan-Meier method was utilized for analyzing the 3- and 5-survial rates of RCC patients. The Cox proportional hazards regression model was used for the multivariate analysis. NOV-positive rate was uncorrelated with age, gender, disease course or TNM classification while was negatively correlated with pathological grades. NOV-positive rate in RCC tumor and ANT tissues was 58% and 100%, respectively. Five-year survival rate in NOV-positive group was significantly lower than that in NOV-negative group. Our data suggested that NOV down-regulation might be a biomarker for RCC but its positivity might be an indicator of poor prognosis.