Expression and clinical significance of fibroblast growth factor 1 in gastric adenocarcinoma

BACKGROUND The clinical significance of fibroblast growth factor 1 (FGF1) has been revealed in several cancers, including ovarian cancer, breast cancer, and bladder cancer. However, the clinical significance of FGF1 in gastric adenocarcinoma has not been explored. PATIENTS AND METHODS In our experiments, we systematically evaluated FGF1 expression in 178 cases of gastric adenocarcinoma with immunohistochemistry, and subsequently analyzed the correlation between FGF1 expression and clinicopathologic features. Moreover, FGF1 expression in tumor tissue and corresponding adjacent tissue was detected and compared by real-time polymerase chain reaction. The Kaplan-Meier method and the Cox-regression model were used with univariate and multivariate analysis, respectively, to evaluate the prognostic value of FGF1 in gastric adenocarcinoma. RESULTS Higher FGF1 expression rate is 56.7% (101/178) in gastric adenocarcinoma. FGF1 expression in gastric adenocarcinoma was significantly higher than adjacent tissue (P<0.0001). Expression of FGF1 is significantly associated with lymph node invasion (P<0.001), distant metastasis (P=0.013), and differentiation (P=0.015). Moreover, FGF1 overexpression was closely related to unfavorable overall survival rate (P=0.021), and can be identified to be an independent unfavorable prognostic factor (P=0.004). CONCLUSION FGF1 is an independent prognostic factor, indicating that FGF1 could be a potential molecular drug target in gastric adenocarcinoma.