Increased expression of stomatin-like protein 2 (STOML2) predicts decreased survival in gastric adenocarcinoma: a retrospective study.

Stomatin-like protein 2 (STOML2), a member of the stomatin, has been reported to be upregulated in several human cancers. However, its role and clinical significance in gastric adenocarcinoma remains unclear to date. The purpose of this retrospective study was to explore whether there was a correlation between the expression of STOML2 by immunohistochemistry and the clinical outcome of a large group of patients with gastric adenocarcinoma. In this retrospective study, we performed immunohistochemistry to evaluation of STOML2 expression in a large panel of gastric adenocarcinoma samples. The receiver operating characteristic method was used to define the STOML2 immunoreactivity score cutoff value. The clinical/prognostic significance of STOML2 expression was analyzed statistically. Kaplan-Meier analysis was used to compare the postoperative survival between groups. STOML2 was overexpressed in gastric cancer compared with paracancerous normal mucosa. Increased STOML2 expression was associated with higher histologic grade (P = 0.047), T category (P < 0.001), and N category (P = 0.01). Patients with high expression of STOML2 demonstrated shortened overall survival compared with those with low expression of STOML2 (median of 38.9 vs. 64.0 months, P < 0.001). Furthermore, STOML2 expression could stratify patients survival in stage N0 (P < 0.001). Multivariate analysis showed that the level of STOML2 expression was an independent prognostic factor in gastric adenocarcinoma (RR = 1.920, P = 0.001). Increased expression of STOML2 suggests unfavorable prognosis for gastric adenocarcinoma patients. Further studies are warranted.