Clinical significance of astrocyte elevated gene-1 expression in human epithelial ovarian carcinoma.

Astrocyte elevated gene-1 (AEG-1) plays an important role in tumor progression including transformation, evasion of apoptosis, invasion, metastasis, and chemoresistance. However, the expression of AEG-1 in ovarian carcinoma and its significance are still unclear. The aim of this study was to examine the expression of AEG-1 in ovarian carcinoma. Immunohistochemistry was performed to determine the expression of AEG-1 in 81 ovarian carcinoma specimens. The correlation of AEG-1 expression with clinicopathological parameters was assessed using χ2 analysis. Patient survival was analyzed using the Kaplan-Meier and log-rank tests. Cox regression was used for the multivariate analysis of prognostic factors. High expression of AEG-1 was detected in 66.67% of the ovarian carcinomas and was significantly associated with the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics stage, histological grade, presence of residual tumor after primary surgery, and tumor recurrence. Patients with high AEG-1 expression had significantly poorer overall survival and disease-free survival (both P<0.001) when compared with patients with low expression of AEG-1. The multivariate Cox analysis showed that AEG-1 was an independent factor for both overall survival and disease-free survival (both P<0.001). These results showed that high AEG-1 expression was associated with progression and prognosis of ovarian carcinoma.