Aberrant Expression of Prohibitin Is Related to Prognosis of Nasal Extranodal Natural Killer/T Cell Lymphoma, Nasal Type.

Introduction: Nasal extranodal natural killer (NK)/T cell lymphoma, nasal type (ENKTCL) is a high-grade Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-associated malignancy with poor outcomes. There are few biomarkers for the accurate diagnosis and prognostic prediction of the disease. The aim of this study was to investigate the clinicopathological significance of prohibitin (PHB) expression in nasal ENKTCL.

Methods: The expression level of PHB was detected via immunohistochemical staining in 49 nasal ENKTCL tissues and age- and sex-matched controls of 30 nasal mucosa-reactive lymphoid hyperplasia (NRLH) tissues. The correlations between the PHB expression and clinicopathological features of patients with nasal ENKTCL were evaluated.

Results: The results indicated a significantly decreased expression of PHB in nasal ENKTCL tissues compared with in NRLH tissues. Low-level PHB expression was significantly associated with younger age and fever (p = 0.008 and 0.018, respectively). The Kaplan-Meier analysis showed that the cytoplasm expression level of PHB in nasal ENKTCL was inversely related to overall survival (p = 0.046).

Conclusions: PHB may be a potential diagnostic marker and prognostic predictor of nasal ENKTCL.