Sestrin2 expression is a favorable prognostic factor in patients with non-small cell lung cancer

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the prognostic value of Sestirn2 in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Quantitative real-time ( RT-PCR) and western blot were performed to investigate the mRNA and protein expression of Sestirn2 in NSCLC and corresponding non-cancerous tissues. Immunohistochemistry was used to detect the expression of Sestirn2 in 210 NSCLC tissue samples. Overall survival was calculated by the Kaplan-Meier method and analyzed by the log-rank test between different groups. The results indicated that the Sestirn2 expression was significantly lower in NSCLC tissues than the corresponding non-cancerous lung tissues. Low Sestirn2 expression was related to poor tumor differentiation, advanced TNM stage, and lymph node metastasis. Patients with high Sestirn2 expression had longer overall survival than those with low expression levels, which was consistent with the results of the subgroup analysis. Multivariate analysis showed that high Sestirn2 expression was a favorable prognostic factor for NSCLC patients. Our study indicated that Sestirn2 could play an important role in the observation of prognosis in NSCLC and might be a valuable marker for predicting the treatment outcome in patients with NSCLC.