NOD2 maybe a biomarker for the survival of kidney cancer patients

// Deguo Xu 1, * , Shuisheng Zhang 2, * , Shenfeng Zhang 3, * , Hongmei Liu 1, * , Paiyun Li 4, * , Lili Yu 1 , Heli Shang 1 , Yong Hou 1 and Yuan Tian 1 1 Department of Radiation Oncology, Shandong Provincial Qianfoshan Hospital, Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong Province 250014, P.R. China 2 Department of Abdominal Surgical Oncology, National Cancer Center/Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100021, P.R. China 3 Department of Oncology, Zaozhuang Municipal Hospital of Shandong Province, Shizhong District, Zaozhuang, Shandong Province 277101, P.R. China 4 Key Laboratory of Carcinogenesis and Translational Research (Ministry of Education/Beijing), Department of Aetiology, Peking University Cancer Hospital and Institute, Beijing 100142, P.R. China * These authors contributed equally to this work Correspondence to: Yuan Tian, email: tytytianyuan@aliyun.com Keywords: NOD2 gene, kidney cancer, survival, prognosis Received: August 02, 2017      Accepted: September 20, 2017      Published: October 06, 2017 ABSTRACT Background: Nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain-containing protein 2 (NOD2) may play an important role in the outcome of kidney cancer patients. To explore the relationship between NOD2 and the prognosis of kidney cancer patients, a databank-based reanalysis was conducted. Materials and Methods: Data related to kidney cancer patients at least with survival information, was obtained mainly from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). Some clinical data, not available online, was collected by personal email to the author. Then, we reanalyzed all the data in order to make a conclusion about the relationship between NOD2 gene and the prognosis of kidney cancer patients. Results: A total of 1953 samples with NOD2 information from four databanks of The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) were enrolled in this study. The results of KIPAN showed the Kaplan-Meier curve for risk groups, concordance index, and p -value of the log-rank testing equality of survival curves ( Concordance Index = 56.57, Log−Rank Equal Curves p=0.0009006, R^2 = 0.036/0.953, Risk Groups Hazard Ratio = 1.61 (conf. int. 1.21 ~ 2.13), p = 0.001005) , while a box plot across risk groups, including the p -value testing for difference using t -test (or f-test for more than two groups) was shown. There was a statistical significance for the p value of the result ( p < 0.01 ). The similar results could be seen in KIRC and the fourth data (including 468 samples). Conclusions: The status of NOD2 gene maybe a biomarker for the survival of kidney cancer patients.