The prognostic implications of growth-related gene product β in laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma.

Growth-related gene product beta (GRO beta) is an angiogenic chemokine that belongs to the CXC chemokine family, and a number of studies have suggested that GRO beta is associated with tumor development and progression. However, a number of studies have investigated the association between GRO beta expression and the clinical attributes of laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC). In the present study, one-step quantitative polymerase chain reaction and immunohistochemistry analysis were used to detect GRO beta expression and evaluate the association between its expression and the clinicopathological characteristics of LSCC. The results demonstrated that the GRO beta mRNA and protein expression levels were significantly increased in LSCC compared with the corresponding non-cancerous tissues. GROG protein expression in LSCC was associated with tumor-node-metastasis stage, lymph node metastasis and histopathological grade. The Kaplan-Meier method and Cox multi-factor analysis indicated that high GRO beta expression, lymph node metastasis and histopathological grade were significantly associated with poor survival of patients with LSCC. These data indicated that GRO beta may be a novel prognostic biomarker of LSCC.