RESUMO
@# Objective: To investigate the expression of Flotillin-2 (Flot-2) protein in gastric cancer tissues and its relationship with clinicopathological features and prognosis of gastric cancer (GC) patients. Methods: 112 samples of gastric cancer tissue and the corresponding paracancerous tissue that resected at the gastrointestinal surgery department of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University between January 2009 andApril 2010 were collected for this study. The expression of Flot-2 protein in tumor tissues was detected by immunohistochemistry. The survival data were analyzed by Kaplan-Meier and Log-Rank test, and the survival curve was plotted. Spearman correlation analysis was used to examine the relationship between Flot-2 protein expression and clinicopathological characteristics and prognosis of GC patients. Results: In gastric cancer tissues, Flot-2 was primary stained in cytoplasm. Level of Flot-2 was significantly higher in gastric cancer tissues compared with that in paracancerous tissues (53.57% vs 46.43%, P<0.05). Expression of Flot-2 in tumor tissues was significantly associated with tumor size, depth of invasion, lymph node metastasis, distant metastasis and AJCC stage (all P<0.01), but not with gender, age, differentiation degree and tumor location (P>0.05). Moreover, survival analysis showed that the overall survival of patients with low Flot-2 expression was significantly higher than that of the patients with high level (P<0.01). Cox regression analysis indicated that distant metastasis, AJCC stage and Flot-2 expression were the independent risk factors for the prognosis of GC patients. Conclusion: Flot-2 protein was highly expressed in gastric cancer tissues and closely correlated with the poor prognosis of GC patients; Flot-2 is an independent risk factor for GC prognosis and may be served as a potential therapeutic target for gastric cancer.