High expression of PLA2G16 is associated with a better prognosis in HER2-positive breast cancer

PLA2G16 functions as a phosphatase in metabolism and its abnormal expression is closely associated with tumor progression. The aim of this study is to investigate the prognosis value of PLA2G16 in breast cancer.

A tissue microarray including 200 invasive ductal carcinoma specimens was constructed. Immunohistochemistry was performed to determine the PLA2G16 expression status. The Kaplan-Meier analysis and log-rank test were used to evaluate the prognostic value of PLA2G16. The Multivariate Cox regression analysis was performed to identify whether PLA2G16 was an independent prognostic factor.

In our retrospective study, Kaplan-Meier analysis showed that elevated PLA2G16 expression was correlated with improved DFS (P=0.032) in the whole breast cancer patients. In further subgroup analysis, PLA2G16 overexpression was found to be associated with prolonged DFS (P=0.018) in HER2-positive breast cancer patients. More importantly, Multivariate analysis suggested that PLA2G16 was a significant independent prognostic factor in HER2-enriched patients [hazard ratio (HR) =0.151; 95% confidence interval (CI) =0.034-0.672; P=0.013].

Our study evaluated the prognostic significance of PLA2G16 in patients with HER2-positive breast cancer and confirmed the relevance of this metabolism-related gene in patient outcome.