Overexpression of protein kinase cα mRNA may be an independent prognostic marker for gastric carcinoma

Background and Objectives The variability of the prognosis of gastric carcinoma drives extensive researches for novel prognostic markers. The aims of this study were to correlate the expression of protein kinase Cα (PKCα) mRNA with clinicopathological parameters and to evaluate the significant value of PKCα in gastric carcinoma prognosis. Methods PKCα mRNA levels were analyzed in tumor/non-tumor pairs of gastric tissues from surgical specimens of 41 patients with gastric carcinoma employing quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. Expression of PKCα in gastric carcinoma was also examined using immunohistochemistry. Results PKCα mRNA expression was significantly upregulated in gastric carcinoma (P = 0.007). Overexpression of PKCα mRNA was correlated with distant metastasis (P = 0.040). Patients with high PKCα mRNA expression had a significantly poorer overall survival compared with patients with low PKCα mRNA expression (P = 0.0113). The uni-variate Cox regression analysis showed that high PKCα mRNA expression (P = 0.0363) and depth of invasion (P = 0.0443) were two significant prognostic markers for gastric carcinoma. In backward stepwise multi-variate analysis, PKCα mRNA overexpression was also proved to be an independent prognostic marker for gastric carcinoma (P = 0.0275). Conclusions Our results suggest that overexpression of PKCα mRNA has correlation with distant metastasis and may be an independent prognostic marker for gastric carcinoma. J. Surg. Oncol. 2008;97:538–543. © 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc.