Affiliations: [a] Department of Urology, College of Medicine School of Medicine, Chungbuk National University, Cheongju, Korea | [b] Section of Urologic Oncology, The Cancer Institute of New Jersey, Rober Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, NJ, USA | [c] Department of Urology, Center for Prostate Cancer, National Cance Center, Goyang, Korea | [d] BK21 Chungbuk Biomedical Science Center, School of Medicine, Chungbuk National University, Cheongju, Korea | [e] Department of Biomedical Engineering, College of Medicine, Chungbuk National University, Cheongju, Korea
Correspondence:
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Corresponding author: Wun-Jae Kim, M.D., Department of Urology, Chungbuk National University Hospital 62, Kaeshin-dong, Heungduk-ku, Cheongju, Chungbuk, 361-711, Korea. Tel.: +82 43 269 6371; Fax: +82 43 269 6144; E-mail: wjkim@chungbuk.ac.kr.
Abstract: This study sought to determine if runt-related transcription factor 3 (RUNX3) methylation could accurately predict the overall survival in patients with muscle invasive bladder cancer (MIBC). Forty-seven patients with a longer followup period (cohort 1; reported previously) were analyzed. Tumor samples (cohort 2; newly collected) were obtained from 139 MIBC patients. The prognostic significance of RUNX3 methylation was evaluated by Kaplan-Meier analysis and a multivariate Cox regression model. RUNX3 methylation affected the overall survival in cohort 1 (log-rank test; P=0.030). Among the patients in cohort 2, RUNX3 promoter methylation was observed in 93 of the 139 tumor samples (66.9%). Kaplan-Meier estimates showed a significant difference in overall survival according to RUNX3 methylation (P=0.020). By multivariate Cox regression analysis, positive RUNX3 methylation was an independent predictor of overall survival. These results suggest that RUNX3 promoter methylation is a significant prognostic factor for overall survival in MIBC patients.
