A high level of circulating HOTAIR is associated with progression and poor prognosis of cervical cancer.

We recently found that HOTAIR (HOX antisense intergenic RNA) promotes development and induces radioresistance in cervical cancer. In the present study, we investigated the circulating HOTAIR expression and determined its relationships with the clinicopathological parameters in cervical cancer. The sera samples were obtained from 118 pathological diagnosed cervical cancer patients and 100 normal age-matched women. The expression of HOTAIR was measured by quantitative real time PCR. Patients' information were collected and analyzed by the SPSS 17.0 software. Compared with normal control, the expression of HOTAIR was significantly upregulated in the sera of cervical cancer patients (P < 0.0001). In addition, elevated HOTAIR was associated with advanced tumor stages (P < 0.0001), adenocarcinoma (P < 0.0001), lymphatic vascular space invasion (P = 0.0065), and lymphatic node metastasis (P = 0.0259). In addition, our follow-up data showed that high HOTAIR was notably correlated with tumor recurrence (P = 0.013) and short overall survival (P = 0.009). Circulating HOTAIR was commonly upregulated and a potent prognostic marker in cervical cancer.