High expression level of BLCA-4 correlates with poor prognosis in human bladder cancer.

Objectives: To evaluate the association between BLCA-4 tissue expression and patients' prognosis in bladder cancer (BC).

Methods: BLCA-4 expression was analyzed using immunohistochemical staining methods on tissue samples from a consecutive series of 325 BC patients who underwent resections between 2000 and 2006. The correlation of BLCA-4 expression and patients' clinicopathological parameters was evaluated. Survival analysis was performed using the Kaplan-Meier method and Cox's proportional hazards model.

Results: BLCA-4 was highly expressed in 54.8% of the BC patients. BLCA-4 overexpression was significantly associated with tumor grade (P<0.001), and stage (P<0.001). Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed that high expression level of BLCA-4 resulted in a significantly poor prognosis of BC patients. Multivariate analysis revealed that the BLCA-4 expression level was an independent prognostic parameter for the overall survival rate of BC patients.

Conclusions: These findings provide evidence that high expression level of BLCA-4 serves as a poor prognostic biomarker for BC. BLCA-4 may be a potential target of antiangiogenic therapy for BC.