OTUD7B and NIK expression in non-small cell lung cancer: Association with clinicopathological features and prognostic implications

Purpose: To investigate the correlation among OTUD7B and NIK expression and the clinicopathological characteristics in NSCLC patients. Methods: One hundred and twenty patients were involved in this study. We detected OTUD7B and NIK expression by immunohistochemistry and analyzed their correlation with clinicopathological data. Results: The expression of OTUD7B and NIK were negatively correlated in NSCLC tumor samples (r(s) = -0.421, P<0.001). The higher expression of OTUD7B was associated with smaller tumor size(P=0.018), less lymph node metastasis (P=0.012) and earlier TNM stage(P=0.039), while the higher expression of NIK was only related to more lymph node metastasis(P=0.031) and later TNM stage(P=0.011). MMP-9 was negatively correlated with OTUD7B and positively correlated with NIK In addition, the high expression of OTUD7B was associated with good prognosis of NSCLC patients (log-rank = 6.714, P=0.0096), and a high OTUD7B/low NIK index can predict an even better prognosis (log rank = 11.794,P=0.0006). Moreover, the multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that OTUD7B rather than NIK is an independent marker of overall survival in NSCLC patients(HR=1.602, 95% CI 1.009-2.544, P=0.046). Conclusions: OTUD7B and NIK may play important roles in the development of lung cancer. The combination of OTUD7B and NIK expression may be a good index for predicting the prognosis of NSCLC. (C) 2016 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.