URG4 upregulation is associated with tumor growth and poor survival in epithelial ovarian cancer.

Up-regulated gene 4 (URG4) has been demonstrated to be involved in progression of various human cancers. This study investigated the clinicopathological significance of URG4 in epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC). Immunohistochemistry was applied to investigate the expression of URG4 in ovarian tissues of 116 patients. The correlation of URG4 with proliferating cell nuclear antigen index (PCNA) was analyzed and the prognostic value of URG4 in patients was also investigated. Pearson Chi-square test, Spearman correlation coefficient, univariate analysis, multivariate analysis, and Kaplan-Meier method were adopted. The positive rate of URG4 in EOC was higher than that in borderline and benign tumors (P = 0.001). URG4 was positively correlated with PCNA (r = 0.86, P = 0.006). In addition, univariate analysis showed URG4 expression level, clinical stage, pathologic grade, lymphatic metastasis, chemotherapy, and ascites influenced survival time (all P < 0.05). In Cox multivariate analysis, all the aforementioned factors were found to be independent prognostic factors except pathologic grade and ascites (all P < 0.05). Our results suggest for the first time that the URG4 might be involved in the progression of EOC. URG4 was a new target to assess the prognosis of EOC.