Clinical significance of up-regulated lncRNA NEAT1 in prognosis of ovarian cancer.

OBJECTIVE The purpose of the present study was to examine the expression levels of lncRNA NEAT1 in fresh ovarian cancer (OC) tissue and matched adjacent normal tissue specimens, and investigate the clinical significance of NEAT1 in OC. PATIENTS AND METHODS NEAT1 levels in OC tissues and matched adjacent normal tissue specimens were tested by qRT-PCR. Then, statistical analysis was performed to explore the associations of NEAT1 expression with the clinical features and the prognosis of OC. RESULTS NEAT1 is upregulated in ovarian cancer tissues compared with the corresponding adjacent non-neoplastic tissues. The expression level of NEAT1 was positively correlated with FIGO stage (p = 0.004), tumor grade (p = 0.009) and distant metastasis (p = 0.000). Also, the Kaplan-Meier survival curves revealed that high NEAT1 expression was associated with poor prognosis in OC patients. Multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that NEAT1 expression level (p < 0.001) was an independent factor in predicting the overall survival of OC patients. CONCLUSIONS These results suggest that NEAT1 has a potential to function as a clinical biomarker for predicting disease invasiveness and prognosis of patients with OC.