The expression of galectin family has been unraveled in many malignant tumors and related with clinical outcomes. Our current study aims to investigate the prognostic value of galectin-8 expression and refine the current risk stratification system in non-metastatic gastric cancer patients. We retrospectively enrolled 421 patients with gastric cancer from Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University in 2008. The expression of galectin-8 was detected by immunohistochemistry, and its association with clinicopathological features and prognostic outcomes were assessed. We found that galectin-8 expression was significantly associated with tumor size (P = 0.007), T stage (P = 0.001), N stage (P < 0.001), and tumor node metastasis (TNM) stage (P < 0.001). In addition, low galectin-8 expression indicated poor overall survival (OS) (P < 0.001) and disease-free survival (DFS) (P < 0.001). Furthermore, galectin-8 expression level was identified as an independent favorable prognostic factor for OS (P < 0.001). A predictive nomogram was generated with identified independent prognosticators to evaluate patient OS at 3 and 5 years. Our study suggested that galectin-8 is a potential independent favorable prognostic biomarker for survival and recurrence of patients with gastric cancer after surgical resection and the integration of intratumoral galectin-8 expression level into current TNM staging system would help to refine individual risk stratification.
Keywords: Biomarker; Disease-free survival; Galectin-8; Gastric cancer; Overall survival; Prognosis.