A gene expression signature to predicit overall, prostate cancer, and non–prostate cancer survival

Abstract only 51 Background: For prostate cancer patients, prostate cancer specific and non-prostate cancer specific survival have the same importance. This study aimed at identifying expression biomarkers that can predict prostate cancer specific, non-prostate cancer specific and overall survival at diagnosis. Methods: Selected ESCGPs (embryonic stem cell gene predictors) and control genes were analyzed by multiplex quantitative PCR using prostate fine-needle aspiration samples taken at diagnosis from a Swedish cohort of 189 prostate cancer patients diagnosed between 1986 and 2000. Of all patients, 97.9% had overall and cancer-specific survival data and 77.9% were primarily treated only by hormone therapy. The cohort was divided into one discovery and two validation subsets. Univariate and multivariate Cox proportional hazard ratios and Kaplan-Meier plots were used for the survival analysis. A published dataset was used for external validation. Results: An expression signature of F3, VGLL3 and IGFBP3, was sufficient to categorize the patients into high-risk, intermediate-risk and low-risk subtypes. The median overall survival of the subtypes was 3.23, 4.00 and 9.85 years respectively. The difference corresponded to HRs of 5.86 (95% CI 2.91-11.78, P