High expression of eIF3d is associated with poor prognosis in patients with gastric cancer

Background Eukaryotic initiation factor 3 subunit d (eIF3d) is the largest subunit of eIF3, which is shown to promote protein synthesis in cancer cells. Increased expression of eIF3d has been shown in some types of cancers, but has not been previously studied in gastric cancer (GC). Thus, the aim of this study was to analyze eIF3d expression in GC. Patients and methods Expression of eIF3d was detected by immunohistochemistry in GC tissues and adjacent noncancerous (ANC) tissues. Samples were obtained from 210 patients with GC who had received curative gastrectomy. Clinicopathological features and survival rate were also analyzed. Results Expression rates of eIF3d in GC and ANC were 45.2% and 21.0%, respectively. High expression of eIF3d protein was significantly related to tumor stage, as determined by lymph node metastasis and depth of invasion (p<0.05). The Kaplan-Meier survival curves showed that patients with high eIF3d expression had a significantly poor overall survival (p=0.005). Multivariate Cox regression analyses showed that the level of eIF3d was an independent predictive factor of poor prognosis for GC (p=0.017). Conclusion Expression of eIF3d was upregulated in GC. High expression of eIF3d was determined as an independent poor prognostic factor in GC. It is suggested that eIF3d could be a good biomarker in GC.