gene is a novel biomarker that predicts the prognosis of pancreatic cancer: A retrospective multicohort study.

BACKGROUNDS/AIMS: Discovery of new prognostic factors for cases in which the pancreatic cancer scoring and staging system does not result in a clear definition is imperative. We examined the role of Human AlkB homolog H5 () as a prognostic marker for pancreatic cancer.

METHODS

Patient data were extracted from the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). The prognostic value of was confirmed via analysis of and other clinical factors, such as age, sex, and stage, using the time-dependent area under the curve (AUC) of Uno's C-index, the AUC value of the receiver operating characteristics (ROC) at three years, the Kaplan-Meier survival curve, and multivariate analysis.

RESULTS

showed excellent prognosis prediction in comparison with existing markers in the two independent cohorts (n=262). Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed that expression was positively associated with overall survival (log-rank test, ICGC, =0.001; TCGA, =0.01). Notably, comparison of C-index and AUC values in ROC analysis showed that was associated with high C-index and AUC values compared with other clinical variables (C-index: ICGC, 0.621; TCGA, 0.614 and AUC at three years: ICGC, 0.609; TCGA, 0.558). Multivariate analysis demonstrated that is an independent prognostic factor (ICGC, =0.0123; TCGA, <0.001).

CONCLUSIONS

These findings contribute to the study of RNA methylation in pancreatic cancer. We believe that is a new prognostic marker for pancreatic cancer.