Clinical significance and expression of long chain noncoding human leucocyte antigen complex group 18 in human gastric carcinoma

Objective To investigate the clinical significance of long chain noncoding human leucocyte antigen complex group 18 (HCG18) RNA in human gastric carcinoma. Methods Human gastric cancer and matched normal gastric tissues were collected, and HCG18 was detected by fluorescence quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The relationship between HCG18 expression and patient’s sex, age, tumor location, tumor diameter, histological differentiation, depth of tumor invasion, lymph node metastasis, distant metastasis, TNM staging and vascular tumor thrombus and other clinicopathological factors was analyzed, respectively. Results The results showed that HCG18 expression was not significantly correlated with the patient gender (χ2=1.122, P=0.289), age (χ2=2.233, P=0.135), tumor location (χ2=0.302, P=0.960), histological differentiation (χ2=1.218, P=0.544), but significantly correlated with tumor diameter (χ2=10.072, P=0.002), tumor invasion depth (χ2=9.874, P=0.002), lymph node metastasis (χ2=5.214, P=0.022), distant metastasis (χ2=4.800, P=0.028), TNM staging (χ2=12.115, P=0.007) and tumor thrombus (χ2=7.902, P=0.005). HCG18 expression level was one of the important independent risk factors influencing the prognosis of patients with gastric cancer. Conclusion Detection of HCG18 is helpful for the gene level diagnosis of gastric cancer. Key words: Gastric carcinoma; Long chain noncoding RNA; Human leucocyte antigen complex group 18