Fused in Sarcoma (FUS) Expression May Predict Survival Outcomes of Patients With Advanced Squamous Cell Cervical Carcinoma

Abstract

Because of its role in preserving DNA/RNA stability, there is an increasing number of studies addressing the relationship between Fused in Sarcoma (FUS) expression and cancer. However, the disparity in FUS/FUS oncogenic vs. tumor-suppressive roles may be attributed to the complex molecular pathways associated with FUS regulation in different cancer types, and its role in cervical carcinogenesis remains largely unexplored. Methods: We determined FUS protein expression in specimens of 61 patients with advanced cervical cancer. Long-term (> 10 years) clinical follow-up data for these patients were available, and we determined disease-free, cancer-related and overall survival as related to FUS expression. Results: There were no significant associations between FUS expression and patients’ age, tumor grade, and acute/late toxicity events related to treatment (either radiation alone or chemoradiation). However, multivariate Cox regression analysis for disease-free survival (recurrence), overall survival (death) and cancer-related survival showed that patients with high average FUS expression fared significantly better than their counterparts with low average FUS expression, both in terms of disease-free survival (HR = 0.31; 95%CI 0.12 to 0.77; p = 0.01) and cancer-related survival (HR = 0.41; 95%CI 0.17 to 0.98; p = 0.04). Conclusions: Our study shows that high FUS protein expression in advanced cervical cancer specimens is a potent harbinger of better prognosis, and can as such be used in clinical practice to help characterize patients and, possibly, plan treatment and follow-up strategies.