Background: The receptor-binding cancer antigen expressed on SiSo cells (RCAS1) is a human tumor-associated antigen that has been considered to play a crucial role in tumor progression by enabling cancer cells to evade immune surveillance. The present study aimed to evaluate the clinical significance of the RCAS1 expression in gastric adenocarcinoma.
Material and methods: RCAS1 protein expression was assessed immunohistochemically on 54 gastric adenocarcinoma tissue samples and was analyzed in relation to clinicopathological parameters, tumor proliferative capacity, and patients' survival.
Results: Enhanced RCAS1 expression levels were significantly associated with advanced histopathological stage and presence of organ metastasis (P = 0.0084 and P = 0.0327). Gastric cancer patients with elevated RCAS1 expression levels showed significantly shorter survival times compared to those with low RCAS1 expression (log-rank test, P = 0.0168). In multivariate analysis, histopathological stage and grade of differentiation as well as the RCAS1 expression were identified as independent prognostic factors (Cox regression analysis, P = 0.0204, P = 0.0035, and P = 0.0081).
Conclusions: Our data support the evidence that RCAS1 upregulation may contribute to gastric malignant progression, representing a useful biomarker to predict the biological behaviour and prognosis in gastric neoplasia.