NOVA1 expression is associated with clinicopathological characteristics and prognosis in patients with small cell lung cancer.

Background: Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is a highly aggressive lung malignancy which is characteristic of rapid tumor proliferation, metastasis as well as paraneoplastic neurological syndromes (PNS). Recent studies have shown that neuro-oncological ventral antigen-1 (NOVA1) plays a crucial role in the progression of various tumors. However, its effect on SCLC is still exclusive. This study was aimed to explore NOVA1 expression in tumor tissues of SCLC patients as well as its correlation with clinicopathological characteristics and cancer-specific overall survivals.

Methods: In this study, the patients pathologically diagnosed with new primary SCLC were enrolled. Firstly, we compared NOVA1 expression in SCLC tissues and adjacent normal tissues by immunohistochemistry. We further investigated the association of NOVA1 expression with clinicopathological markers (especially the categories of PNS) and survival time in SCLC patients.

Results: Our finding exhibited that NOVA1 was remarkably expressed in SCLC tumorous tissues compared with adjacent normal lung tissues (P<0.001). Additionally, NOVA1 expression was closely associated with clinicopathological characteristics in SCLC patients in terms of tumor staging(χ=15.833; P<0.001), lymph node metastasis (χ=9.624; P=0.002), brain metastasis (χ=9.624; P=0.002) and PNS (χ=5.004; P=0.024). With the COX proportional hazard regression model, we detected that high expression of NOVA1 (HR =0.445; 95% CI: 0.213-0.934; P=0.032) was an independent factor for shorter survival time.

Conclusions: High expression of NOVA1 is closely associated with aggressive clinicopathological characteristics including PNS as well as poor survival in SCLC patients. NOVA1 can be served as a promising predictive factor for prognosis in SCLC.