Epstein-Barr virus-encoded small RNA 1 (EBER-1) could predict good prognosis in nasopharyngeal carcinoma

EBER-1 (a non-coding RNA transcribed by EBV) expression was detected in most of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-positive nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) patients. However, the relevance between EBER-1 expression and NPC clinical outcome has not been reported. This study aims to assess the possible correlations of EBER-1 expression and clinical parameters and its potential prognostic predictive ability in NPC patient's outcomes.

We examined EBER-1 mRNA expression in 301 NPC and 130 non-NPC tissues using in situ hybridization and did statistics.

EBER-1 expression was up-regulated in NPC tissues when compared to non-NPC tissues. A receiver operating characteristic analysis revealed that EBER-1 expression could distinguish non-cancerous patients from NPC patients (p < 0.001, sensitivity: 72.5 %, specificity: 83.5 %, AUC = 0.815). A survival analysis revealed that patients with high levels of EBER-1 expression had a significantly good prognosis (Disease-free survival: p = 0.019, overall survival: p = 0.006).

These results indicated that EBER-1 expression is a potential prognosis factor of NPC and highly negative correlated with the progress of NPC.