Overexpressed transcription factor FOXM1 is a potential diagnostic and adverse prognostic factor in postoperational gastric cancer patients.

Purpose: In the present study, we intend to detect the expression of Forkhead box transcription (FOXM1) in gastric cancer tissues and cell lines, and analyze the correlation between FOXM1 expression and clinic-pathological features as well as their association with clinic outcomes in patients with resectable gastric cancers.

Methods: We examined the expression of FOXM1 in 103 cancer tissues from patients who underwent gastrectomy during Jan 2007 to Nov 2007 and 68 randomly selected para-cancer tissues by immunohistochemistry. The expression of FOXM1 protein in the benign and malignant human gastric cell lines was simultaneously detected using Western blot analysis. Data on clinic-pathological features and relevant prognostic factors in these patients were then analyzed.

Results: FOXM1 expression was absolutely higher in gastric cancer than para-cancer tissues (P < 0.001) and normal gastric epithelium cell lines (P = 0.022). No significant association was found between FOXM1 expression and any clinic-pathological parameters (P > 0.1). FOXM1 amplification was showed to be independently associated with prognosis in gastric cancer patients (P = 0.001), and its affection is more significant in patients with tumor size larger than 5 cm (P = 0.004), pT3-4 (P = 0.003) or pIII-IV (P = 0.001) as a result of stage-stratified analysis.

Conclusions: Overexpressed FOXM1 is a potential diagnostic and poor prognostic biomarker in postoperational gastric cancer patients.