Purpose: Uterine leiomyosarcoma, which accounts for 7% of all soft-tissue sarcomas and 1%-3% of all uterine malignancies, is an aggressive tumor responsible for a significant proportion of uterine cancer-related deaths. While Federation Internationale des Gynaecologistes et Obstetristes (FIGO) stage is the most important prognostic factor, metastatic and relapse rates at stage I exceed 50% so it is currently impossible to predict the clinical outcome of stage I leiomyosarcomas. In 2010, our team published a transcriptomic signature composed of 67 genes related to chromosome biogenesis, mitosis control, and chromosome segregation. It has demonstrated its prognostic value in many cancer types and was recently successfully applied to formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded sarcomas by NanoCind on NanoString technology, making another step forward toward its use in routine practice.
Experimental design: Sixty uterine leiomyosarcomas at any stage, including 40 localized in the uterus (stage I), were analyzed with the NanoCind (CINSARC with NanoString) signature. Its prognostic value was evaluated for overall survival and relapse-free survival and compared in multivariate analysis with other prognostic markers like FIGO staging and genomic index.
Results: The NanoCind signature was able to split the heterogeneous group of uterine leiomyosarcomas of any stage including stage I into two distinct groups with different relapse-free survival and overall survival. These results were validated on an independent cohort of uterine leiomyosarcomas in The Cancer Genome Atlas consortium.
Conclusions: The NanoCind signature is a powerful prognosticator that outperforms FIGO staging and the genomic index. The CINSARC signature is platform independent and "ready to use" and should now be used for randomization in future therapeutic trials.
©2019 American Association for Cancer Research.