Serum lncRNA LOXL1‐AS1 is a diagnostic and prognostic marker for epithelial ovarian cancer

BACKGROUND: The present study aimed to examine the levels of circulating LOXL1-AS1 in epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) patients and to analyze its diagnostic and prognostic value. METHODS: The levels of LOXL1-AS1 in 185 EOC patients and 43 healthy volunteers were evaluated by a quantitative reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction. The potential of LOXL1-AS1 as a biomarker for EOC diagnosis was determined by receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve assays. The associations between clinicopathological parameters and LOXL1-AS1 expression were analyzed using a chi-squared test. The influence of LOXL1-AS1 on overall survival was analyzed by the use of Kaplan-Meier. A Cox proportional hazards assays were conducted for the determination of the prognostic value of LOXL1-AS1. RESULTS: The expression of LOXL1-AS1 was dramatically higher in EOC patients compared to healthy controls (p < 0.01). LOXL1-AS1 yielded an area under the ROC curve of 0.843 with 65.3% sensitivity and 68.2% specificity in discriminating high-grade EOC from healthy controls. It was also shown that LOXL1-AS1 expression was associated with advanced FIGO stage (p = 0.004) and positively distant metastasis (p = 0.013). Kaplan-Meier assays revealed that patients with high LOXL1-AS1 expression had a shorter overall survival than those with low expression (p = 0.0006). By performing multivariate assays, LOXL1-AS1 was confirmed to be an independent prognostic factor for predicting the prognosis of EOC patients. CONCLUSIONS: We provide evidence indicating that LOXL1-AS1 expression is correlated with a poor clinical outcome in EOC patients and may act as an independent prognostic indicator, as well as a new diagnostic biomarker.