Association of MMP-2 expression and prognosis in osteosarcoma patients.

OBJECTIVE Our aim was to investigate the MMP-2 expression and its prognostic value in osteosarcoma patients. METHODS We performed RT-qPCR to detect the expression of MMP-2 in 45 paired osteosarcoma tissues and adjacent noncancerous tissues. Immunohistochemical staining assay was used to verify the expression of MMP-2 protein in osteosarcoma patients. Independent-sample T test was used to analyze the difference of MMP-2 expression level between osteosarcoma and control groups. The relationship between clinicopathologic factors and MMP-2 expression was analyzed by chi-square test. Kaplan-Meier was performed to analyze the association of MMP-2 expression and overall survival rate. The prognostic value of clinicopathologic factors and MMP-2 was estimated via Cox regression analysis. RESULTS RT-qPCR revealed that the expression of MMP-2 was up-regulated in osteosarcoma group compared with the control group. Besides MMP-2 expression was influenced by pulmonary metastasis (P<0.05) while gender, age, tumor site and Enneking stage showed no obvious impact (P>0.05). Kaplan-Meier curve revealed that patients with positive MMP-2 expression had a shorter survival time than those with negative MMP-2 expression, and the survival rates were 18.5% (5/27) and 44.4% (8/18), respectively. Cox regression analysis indicated that pulmonary metastasis and expression of MMP-2 gene were important factors in the prognosis of osteosarcoma. CONCLUSION The expression of MMP-2 was associated with pulmonary metastasis, and was related to the prognosis of osteosarcoma. MMP-2 could act as an independent prognostic marker in osteosarcoma patients.